To franske fotohistorikere har her fylt en hel bok med amatørfotografier de kommet over på loppemarkeder og markedsboder i løpet av de siste tjue årene. Som de skriver i forordet: "In the hands of amateur photographers, the camera is unpredictable, it captures the things we wish to preserve, but not always as we intended ... Year after year as we sifted and arranged these photographs, we began to feel that the images we found embodied something specifically human that seemed to have eluded painting, film or art photography."