Danny Lyon, Kathy, Chicago, 1965 (printed 1966)

Narrator: Lyon left SNCC in 1964. He went to New Orleans for a while, then returned to Chicago. There, he joined the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. This began a practice that he would continue throughout his career—embedding himself within communities and photographing its members from within. 

Julian Cox: Kathy is one of the key subjects in the Bikerider series. His typical way of working with his subjects involved often finding specific characters who he felt could really portray the essence of a specific moment, specific community, or specific culture. Kathy is in a way the matriarch of the bike riders. 

This is picture has been very interestingly constructed by the photographer. He is standing next to the subject and photographing away from her, but capturing her looking towards us. This is an important picture for Lyon, because it's a transition between the kind of work he made more spontaneously out on the streets when he was documenting the bikers and his desire to make thoughtful intimate personal portraits of people that he really connected with and he thought were important for one reason or another.