A Time of Youth editor Lisa McCarty highlights the importance of preserving an artist's intention through the example of the extensive and meticulous archive of photographer William Gedney.

William Gedney was a New York street photographer who earned four major art grants including a Guggenheim and Fullbright Fellowship in the late 60s. The first of these allowed him to travel to San Francisco, settling in Haight-Ashbury right before the Summer of Love. His photographs are contemplatively personal, focusing on the intimacy between people at the time.

Through his lifetime, Gedney created many book maquettes but never received a publishing contract. One of these maquettes was developed solely from the photographs taken during his time in San Francisco. After dying of AIDS in 1989, the maquette entitled, A Time of Youth, was left to the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke University, who recently published the book with the artist's intent in mind.

A Time of Youth sequences eighty-seven of over two thousand photographs Gedney took in Haight-Ashbury between October 1966 and January 1967. These photographs document the complex lives of youth at the center of 1960s counterculture. Gedney lived among them in their communal homes, photographing the intimacy of their everyday life. It’s an alternative snapshot of the San Francisco counterculture, going deeper than the surface-level, care-free depictions of 1960s flower children. Handwritten descriptions and ephemera complement Gedney’s photographs giving deeper context to his experience and work.

Artist, professor, and archivist Lisa McCarty edited and the book, reanimating Gedney's work with deep respect and homage to his original sequence and creative decisions.

Duke Archive of Documentary Arts curatorial assistant Cassandra Klos speaks with McCarty on her experience and process working through Gedney's historical archive.