Can You Identify the Mystery Photographer Who Captured Thousands of Captivating Images of 1960s San Francisco?

Students protesting the Vietnam War. Body-painted pedestrians gathered in Golden Gate Park. Muhammad Ali speaking out against the draft. A young, short-haired Carlos Santana playing guitar. All these scenes and more were captured in photographs in late-1960s San Francisco—and nobody knows who shot them.

The images eventually ended up in an abandoned Bay Area storage locker, where they were discovered in the early 1980s. The 2,042 processed 35-millimeter color slides and 102 rolls of labeled black-and-white film were inside a plastic garbage bag. The collection, which contains some 8,417 photos, changed hands several times over the years. In 2022, it was purchased by commercial photographer Bill Delzell, who runs the educational nonprofit SpeakLocal.

Now, Delzell is on a quest to process the undeveloped rolls of film, publicly display them and identify their mystery creator. These efforts are being funded by his Kickstarter campaign.

“This work is really unique,” as Delzell tells CBS News’ Amanda Hari. “It captures everything from the 1960s to 1970—the counterculture movement, the music movement, civil rights movement, the summer of love, on and on and on. So, it really represents the city of San Francisco.”

The collection’s 75 undeveloped rolls of Kodachrome film likely amount to about 2,700 photos, reports the San Francisco Standard’s Sam Mondros. Delzell is working with a Canadian film restoration company, as well as researchers from the Internet Archive and students from a Sacramento charter school.

The first person Delzell showed the images to was his friend Katy Kavanaugh, and her reaction “left me stunned,” as he writes on the Kickstarter page. In one of Delzell’s randomly selected five photos, Kavanaugh saw herself: A 1968 image of a march for farmworkers’ rights featured a 5-year-old Kavanaugh, walking with her parents and siblings.

“My father is standing behind my mother, looking out into the crowd,” Kavanaugh tells the San Francisco Standard. “The weight of the moment is both in my dad’s and my face. It was clear that the photographer wanted to capture San Francisco in this moment, with children and families recognizing the plight of the farmworkers.”

As Delzell examined the collection and showed it to more people, other faces were identified. One image features a green-painted woman eating a carrot in Golden Gate Park—and in the background is artist Stanley Mouse, who designed the Grateful Dead’s Skeleton and Roses poster.

Another image shows boxer Muhammad Ali addressing civil rights and anti-war activists from a podium in San Francisco. Flanking Ali is photojournalist Michael Zagaris, who later recalled how Ali burned Zagaris’ draft card onstage.

Who Shot Me - Stories Unprocessed Kickstarter Project

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Though Delzell is years into his project, he’s made little progress in the task of identifying the vast collection’s creator. “It’s hard to imagine that the photographer is living,” he tells the San Francisco Standard. “No journalist or artist would let the images of such iconic figures knowingly sit untouched for so long, which suggests a student or an avid hobbyist.”

However, thanks to recent input from online sleuths, one particular theory is gaining traction. Wishing to share the images with the world, Delzell posted them on Reddit, including a photo of a decorated shop window in which the photographer’s reflection is visible—fuzzy and far away. Somebody noted that the photographer looks like Agnès Varda, a famous French film director who died in 2019.

Delzell’s now looking for a venue to host an exhibition of the photography collection. Regardless of whether the photographer’s identity is ever revealed, the collection’s historical significance remains, as Delzell tells the Internet Archive’s Caralee Adams. He wants to share it with educators and the public.

“This person was really fearless in my mind. They were absolutely up close and personal,” Delzell tells the San Francisco Chronicle. “If it was a young woman, she was remarkably brave. If it was a student, they were passionate about the time. And if it was a photojournalist, they missed their deadline, because they never processed the film.”

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.