Clare Kearney and Liz Gutekunst of the Cancer Girls. Washington, DC, 1979

The photograph shows Clare Kearney and Liz Gutekunst of the Cancer Girls. Washington, DC, 1979. Made in 1979, it is the kind of image that turns a date in a history book into something you can actually see.

The 1970s had a grittier texture than the decades before it — economic shocks, urban decline, and political distrust, but also bold fashion, muscle cars, and the first stirrings of the digital age. Color film had become cheap and ubiquitous, so the decade survives in vivid Kodachrome hues.

What makes everyday photographs like this one compelling is the details at the edges: the clothes, the signs, the tools, the postures. They preserve texture that history books flatten out.