Greenfield. The Archive. Pablo Lerma. Meteoro Editions. Spain, 2018.

By Daniel Espinoza

What would you do if you find some old negatives? This is precisely the starting point of this book. Some years ago, Pablo Lerma bought at a flea market a box full of negatives from an old photo store in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Hundreds of black-and-white and a few colour negatives were left – intentionally or not – inside their brown envelopes only to be discovered decades later by Pablo. Then he decided to bring these memories to light by cataloging and presenting them in a compelling book.

The book is divided into two sections. The first one is like a small notebook containing a collection of commissioned texts that imagine different stories originating from the found images. The second part is the collection of images presented in a cataloged way with the information provided by the envelopes.

Altogether, this book is a homage to memory and reverie. A personal way to pay tribute to every-day and family images that constitute an important part of our visual culture, and overall a tribute to family life, which constitutes after all the basis of our society.