Elaine Mayes: Haight-Ashbury: Portraits 1967-1968

During the 1960s, Elaine Mayes was a young photographer living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District. She had photographed the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and, later that year, embarked on a set of portraits of youth culture in her neighborhood. Mayes shifted from the photojournalistic approach she had applied to musicians and concert-goers in Monterey to making formal portraits of people she met on the street. Her familiarity with her subjects helped her to evade media stereotypes of hippies as radically utopian and casually tragic, presenting instead an understated and unsentimental group portrait of the individual inventors of a fleeting cultural moment.

Format: Hardback
Length: 96 pages
Publication date: 13 October 2022
Publisher: Damiani

Elaine Mayes, a young photographer residing in San Francisco's vibrant Haight-Ashbury District during the 1960s, embarked on a remarkable journey capturing the essence of youth culture. Her photographic journey began with the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, followed by a series of portraits that portrayed the evolving landscape of the Summer of Love. By that time, the hippie movement had transitioned from euphoria to the darker realm of harder drugs, and the Haight had transformed from a blissful haven for young individuals seeking a better way of life to a shelter for runaway teens. Recognizing the profound significance of the cultural moment, Mayes shifted her focus from photojournalistic portraits of musicians and concert-goers to creating formal portraits of the people she encountered on the streets. She chose casual and familiar settings, such as stoops, doorways, parks, and interiors, to create an intimate atmosphere that allowed her subjects to relax and be themselves. Mayes' familiarity with her subjects played a crucial role in avoiding the media's stereotypical portrayal of hippies as radically utopian and tragically casual. Instead, she presented an understated and unsentimental group portrait that celebrated the individual inventors of a fleeting cultural moment. Elaine Mayes: The Haight-Ashbury Portraits 1967-1968, published as the first monograph on this significant body of work, showcases over forty images from Mayes' extensive series. An essay by art historian Kevin Moore provides valuable insights into an important chapter in the history of West Coast photography during this pivotal cultural and artistic period.

Weight: 918g
Dimension: 258 x 289 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9788862087735