These photos were found in a box of 35mm slide transparencies at a Santa Barbara yard sale. There is something so sad about the relics of someone’s life sitting in the sun, anonymously, late in the day. Judging by my friends’ reactions, buying other people’s photos is crazy, but the fact that they were slides, and so old … they had a sense of mystery.

These ones capture an almost mythic ’70s; innocent nudity, a sweet, earthy, back-to-nature hippie-ness…

How did something like this end up in a yard sale? The people selling it spoke very little English, and appeared to do yard sales professionally. Seems like most of these people would still be alive. Did the photographer die? Or just decide to toss them out?