Man Shares 20 Beautiful Street Photos Taken Over Half A Century Ago By His Late Grandfather
Back in 2014, a man named Dylan Scalet inherited some boxes from his late grandfather, Jack Sharp. Turns out that they contained a collection of old negatives, and now, six years later, the man had finally gotten around digitizing them. The results left him absolutely stunned – the negatives contained beautiful street photos taken over fifty years ago and Dylan decided to share his grandpa’s work with the world.
In a recent interview with Bored Panda, Dylan said he was really excited to see what was inside all the boxes he had inherited. “There was so much, it could be anything! As you can imagine, I was pleasantly surprised, which made the scanning process less tedious as it took weeks to fetch through all of it,” said the man. “As I had come to learn about the great photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Vivian Maier, I simply could not believe the images I was seeing as I dived into the archive. I knew instantly that these photos were special. Not just because they were my grandfather’s, but because I was able to recognize the beauty of these photographs objectively.” Dylan knew it was going to be a lot of work but felt like sharing them was the right thing to do.
More info: Instagram | jacksharp.co.uk
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Dylan wanted to scan the negatives for quite some time and eventually invested in a high-quality scanner that he used to scan over 5,000 of his grandfather’s negatives. “It was a project I wanted to do ever since I had scanned a few pieces of his work at uni, but after I graduated, I was more focused on starting a career and I didn’t have the funds to get a proper scanner,” explained the man. “5 years later, I was able to invest into a Epson V850 and lockdown was the perfect time to get through it all.”
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Dylan explained that his grandfather worked as an engineer at the CERN laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, and was an avid street photographer in his free time. “Jack was born in Harrold, UK in 1928 and then moved to Switzerland in 1955 at the age of 27 to join the famous research organisation CERN as an engineer,” said the man. “I never met my grandfather, but everything I know about him is the stories I hear from my mum or other relatives. Everyone loved him, he loved life and loved it to the fullest. He was clearly a clever guy and would always put his full heart into everything he did.”
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According to Dylan, his grandfather used the Agfa Super Silette Apotar 45mm f/1:3.5 and Asahi Pentax K Auto-Takumar 55mm f/1.8 cameras to take the photos and explained that most of them were taken around Switzerland. “Due to my grandfather’s migration to Switzerland, my whole family was born in Switzerland. I am very fortunate to have a Swiss, British, and Italian passport,” said the man. “I have a degree in photography, but only practice the craft as a hobby. I was really interested to learn about photography at a higher level because of my grandfather’s work and my dad pushed me to follow my passion.”
See more incredible street photos taken by late Jack Sharp below!
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Got wisdom to pour?