Elaine Mayes' Haight-Ashbury Portraits Capture Youth at Summer of Love's End

Elaine Mayes photographed adolescents in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood from 1967 to 1968, as the Summer of Love idealism waned and harder drugs and transient youth marked the area. Her series "The Haight-Ashbury Portraits" documents a generation caught between freedom and a closing world. Mayes, who had previously shot the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, used a Hasselblad on a tripod with small apertures (f/16 or more) for sharp depth of field. She asked subjects to breathe out as she captured their image, aiming for naturalness. The project emerged spontaneously as she walked the streets, sometimes asking where they'd like to be photographed. Mayes explained her process to AAP, noting most agreed to be included in her planned book about Haight. Other photographers like Vivian Cherry and Adrienne Salinger similarly sought authenticity in youth portraiture.