Portrait of an elderly gentleman. Photographs by Julian Germain with the photo albums of Charles and Betty Snelling

The only way to implement change is if we can achieve a non-commercial realisation of happiness….Germain compiled ’For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ from pages in Charlie Snelling’s family album and from photos that he had taken of Charlie. It is a template model for what critical engagement should try to achieve in our day and age: forget the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ and provide examples of people who operate in a different forcefield. People who are not grasping, not filled with self-importance and not embittered, people with a profound understanding of who they are and what they stand for, something that cuts across all cultures. We cannot personally invent life; we have to follow someone’s example. There were times when local traditions did the job, but now the media has stepped into the role. Do not leave this vital task to the commercially driven! Stand up for who you are no matter what the adverts try to turn you into. We need examples of people who do not submit to this, who lead courageous lives, who will not allow themselves to be pushed into the sidelines because of set-backs as they accept that adversity is an inextricable aspect of life. in a world that holds such examples high, social injustice will disappear.

Hans Aarsman: Do we just keep complaining about injustice or do we set an example? Essay appears in New Commitment in Architecture, Art and Design. NAI Books, 2003.

The experience of thumbing Snelling's old scrapbooks is rich and cinematic, and the photos have an authenticity that no outside photographer can match. Indeed, this is one of the project's central paradoxes. Germain's photographs of Snelling - artfully composed with shallow depth of field - are wonderful. But they look like, well, fine art photographs. The fact that an old snapshot might communicate more information, or at least convey it more directly, is a problem most photographers would prefer not to think about. But Germain addresses it head-on. He not only throws scrapbooks into the mix, but they're given equal treatment with his own photos. For Germain, this is only one example in a long career of reinterpreting found photographs. A collaborator with Erik Kessels and board member of Useful Photography, Germain finds recontextualizing the vernacular familiar territory. To the extent that it works in this case, it's due to the obvious affection Germain has for Snelling. As much love and care as Charles and Betty have put into their scrapbooks, Germain has put into his own photos.

Blake Andrews, Photo Eye, 2011

On a rudimentary level it is a record of human interaction - something quite ordinary - yet ‘For every minute…’ gradually accumulates until it becomes a description of the meaning of a person’s life. 

Ed Paxton, Then there was us, 2021