Stunning Vintage Black-and-White Photos of Edwin Smith

Kentish Town station, London

Edwin Smith (born Edwin George Herbert Smith) was an English photographer best known for his distinctive vignettes of English gardens, landscapes, and architecture.

In 1935 he became a freelance photographer, working as a fashion photographer for Vogue for a short time. However, Smith concentrated his artistic efforts on subjects such as the mining community of Ashington in Northumberland, the docks of Newcastle, and circuses and fairgrounds around London.

In 1954, Smith married artist and writer Olive Cook, whom he authored or contributed to numerous books during his lifetime. A tireless promoter of Smith’s work, Cook left her husband’s archive of 60,000 negatives to the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Robert Elwall Photographs Collection in 2002.

h/t: vintag.es

Gateshead

Herring girls gutting fish on the quayside, North Shields

35 Hallam’s Lane, Chilwell near Nottingham

Church Farm Approved School, East Barnet, London

Southend-on-Sea, Essex

Palace Pier, Brighton

Central markets, West Smithfield, London

Clothes line in Glencaple, Scotland

Dumbiedykes from Salisbury Crags

Fragment of the colossal statue of Constantine the Great, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome

Night street cleaning near St Paul’s Cathedral, London

‘Ideal’ fish & chip shop, London

Roofscape, Whitby, North Yorkshire

Back-street garden, Camden Town, London

Tulip staircase, Queens House, Greenwich, London

The colonnade, St Peter’s Square, Rome

Campo San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

Villa Garzoni Collodi, Tuscany

St Lawrence Didmarton, Gloucestershire

Farm in the mountains between Auletta and Potenza, Italy

Two boys on a doorstep, Kilkenny, Ireland

St Columba’s Wells, Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Skandia cinema, Stockholm

Lyne Church Peebles, Scotland

Bodnant Garden, Conwy, Wales

Pincio gardens overlooking Rome

View from the Palazzo dello Sport, Rome