Humorous Vintage Portraits of Photographer Leslie Jones Posing With His Cameras

Leslie Jones worked for the Boston Herald-Traveler newspaper between the years 1917 and 1956. He was educated at the Farm and Trade School on Thompson Island. Jones first worked as a pattern-maker, but had long held an interest in photography. While working in a Boston factory, he continued developing himself as a freelance photographer. It was not until Jones unfortunately lost two of his fingers to the factory machinery, however, which led him to convert this avocation into his profession. He joined the Boston Herald-Traveler staff in 1917.

Modest about his abilities as a photographer (he called himself a camera-man, not a photo-journalist), Jones quietly built an unrivaled collection of photographic negatives, almost 40,000 of which were given to the Boston Public Library by his family in the early 1970s. The collection is a stunning pictorial document of the history of Boston in the 20th century, and a tribute to the craft and artistry of a man who by doing his job preserved the past on glass and film.

(Photos © Leslie Jones/Boston Public Library, via Shooting Film)