When Dylan Scalet inherited a collection of photos from his grandfather Jack Sharp, he wasn’t exactly thrilled. In fact, it was only during the Covid-19 lockdown that he got around to digitalizing the film, and he was in for a surprise! What he found was a treasure trove. The incredible photos of Sharp vividly depict the street life of Europe, more than half a century ago.
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Scalet, who was born after his grandfather had passed away, felt like the process of going through the photos was also a process of getting to know the man who took them. Jack Sharp was a British engineer by trade, working in Geneva, Switzerland. In his free time, however, he was a street photographer and a talented one at that. These images were all taken between 1950-1970. Scalet was told that his grandfather fully embraced everything he took an interest in. When he started photography, he researched a lot, understood the mechanics of the camera, how to catch the perfect lighting, and the science of the darkroom.
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The photos were taken everywhere around Switzerland, but mostly in Geneva, Lausanne, and the western regions. As for the camera, it was an Agfa Super Silette Apotar 45mm f/1:3.5 and an Asahi Pentax K Auto-Takumar 55mm f/1.8, according to Scalet.
The excitement about the revelation and the desire to share his Grandfather’s work comes from the fact that the photographs are really are something special. "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. I knew that it was going to be a lot of work, but getting this out seemed like the right thing to do,” Scalet said in a statement to Bored Panda.
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To see more of Jack Sharp's photography, visit the Instagram page Scalet runs for his grandfather.
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