it gives me the chills

growing up, it was a tradition to pull out Christmas in America during the holidays. i loved looking through the photos even though i had seen them many times before. the idea behind the book was to have a ton of photojournalists cover every state (and even more cities) in the united states and document christmas during a 24 hour period. i loved, and still do love, the realness of the photos and how the photographers captured human nature, american traditions, and familiar scenes so effortlessly (or so it seems).

i stopped in a thrift store the other day and what was waiting for me? A Day in the Life of America. this book was compiled a couple years earlier in 1986, but is based on the same idea.

this is the intro--it gives me the chills:

The book you are holding in your hands is a visual time capsule, an impression of life in America taken on Friday, May 2, 1986, by 200 of the world's leading photographers. No picture here is more than twenty-four hours older or younger than any other, and no picture here has been shot for any purpose other than to document the harmonies and paradoxes of life in America as it was lived on this one ordinary day.

America is a complex country and a proud one. It is an idea, a beckoning, an opportunity. It has always been an improbable country, and to set out to capture it in a single day was an improbable, some would say, impossible, idea.

A Day in the Life of America does not claim to be the true record of even one day. A day cannot be collected as it passes by in a blaze of light between shadows. Yet on May 2nd America yielded some of its secrets to these world class photographers. There are several hundred photographs here, culled from more than 235,000. But even 235,000 images barely hint at the infinite moments that passed through the hills and homes and hearts of America on that day. On May 2nd America was frozen in time and, for decades to come, our children and our children's children will look at these pages with wonder at a day when 200 photographers made time stand still.

"extraordinary photographs of ordinary, everyday events." that's what i love about this book. i would adore being part of a similar project in the future.