May Pang has released a collection of candid photos she took during the year and a half she spent with John Lennon during his infamous Lost Weekend. It’s called Instamatic Karma, and the New York Times talked to her:

“I began to think about publishing them just in the last couple of years,” Ms. Pang said on Monday at her publisher’s office in the Flatiron Building. “A friend of mine kept saying, ‘You tell all these stories about John, and when you do, you say, “Wait a minute, I have a photo to go along with that!” How come we never see these photos in a book?’ So, I thought maybe it’s time to put them out. It would let people see John in that world, through my eyes. And it would get rid of that whole ‘Lost Weekend’ thing, where everyone says he was always down and looked terrible. I don’t think these photos appear that way.”

Watch the slideshow.