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Shades of California, edited by local resident Kimi Kodani Hill and published by Berkeley’s Heyday Books, is billed as “California’s Family Album.” If this is accurate, then we are dancers; sentimental siblings and parents, highly charged lovers experts at offering the enigmatic and ever-compelling come hither glance; goofy and adorable children and assorted loners who stare with wordless passion into a camera lens.  

The Shades of California project grew out of the Shades of L.A. Project, which was started in reaction to the discovery that, in 1990, there was only one image of pre-1965 Watts – an important and largely African-American neighborhood of that city – in the Los Angeles Public Library’s 2.5 million photographic collection.  

It became clear to Carolyn Kozo Cole, curator of the L.A. Public Library’s photographic collection, that little media attention had gone into recording the history and personal experience of people of diverse races and backgrounds who lived in early Los Angeles neighborhoods. She and many others embarked on a massive photo collection effort to enrich and diversify the historical record. 

During “Photo Days,” people were encouraged to bring in their personal family photos. These photos were then copied on the spot and entered into California’s Public Library collection. Soon the program was extended to include Shades of Monterey, Shades of California and other such efforts. 

Shades of California includes more than 350 photographs from throughout the state. These are intimate images from personal histories: first communions, prom days, wedding days, the first day with the new car, parents looking down at their newborns, sisters with arms at each other’s waists, brothers with arms over each other’s shoulders, children kidding around together while on the hood of a car or happily playing dress up, hesitant types frightened at being stunned by a sudden camera flash and quite sociable others whose expressions reveal that they know just how fabulous they’re going to look when the picture comes out.  

The depth of emotion portrayed in these photos is haunting. There’s a huge range of subject and setting, and the subjects are truly diverse. The only thing the photos have in common is that important private moments are being observed.  

Introduction writer Robert Desaler expresses his wonder at the often astonishing beauty of the largely unknown subjects whose experiences have been so artistically captured by amateur photographers. Both the photographers and the photographed are people who, as Desaler describes, "in the usual scheme of things, leave scant traces of themselves."  

I was most moved by the fact that the subjects of these photographs are almost always gazing into the eyes of their photographers with love. Rare and beautiful. An excellent book.