Punk Girls with Belinda Carlisle from the Go-go’s in the Center, 1978

Punk girls with Belinda Carlisle from the Go-Go’s in the center. Los Angeles, 1978. It was taken in 1978, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

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.