Your travel-loving grandparents might send you postcards from beaches abroad, the occasional refrigerator magnet, or, if you're lucky, a T-shirt as a cheerful reminder of a place you've never been. My grandfather loved to travel, but he left me a postcard of an entirely different kind: one that remained undelivered for more than 35 years. When it arrived, it changed my life.
The postcard in question is part of a story that begins almost 80 years ago, in 1945. My paternal grandfather, Herbert Smith, was a young doctor living and working in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Alongside his work, my grandfather developed a passion for photography, taking photographic journeys first across the UK and then to the far reaches of Europe. Over the next 40 years, until his death in 1987, he travelled to more than 40 countries around the world, taking snapshots with his camera of the rich cultures and people he encountered.
Jack Smith never had the chance to meet his grandfather, Herbert Smith. Pictured here in the 1970s.
While I never had the honor of meeting either of my grandparents, my grandfather left behind a life's worth of postcards, 80,000 photographs, all meticulously organized, dated and named. These photographs were carefully packed in plastic bags by my father, out of reach of his children, and lay untouched and unseen for over 30 years in my father's garage near London. My father never told me what was beneath the dusty exterior, and the large boxes remained untouched until, during a visit home for Christmas in 2021, I chanced upon my father's life's work and uncovered this legacy.
I knew my grandfather was a photographer, but I didn't realize how much he traveled the world to capture his images. He spent all of his time and money saving on visiting far-flung countries and cultures, often with my grandmother. From Norway in the 1950s to Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion in the 1970s to neon-lit Japan in the late 1980s, my grandfather visited many places that would still be considered an adventure today, just to take photos. Many of my grandfather's photos show countries and people that have changed so much that they are almost unrecognizable, like a photo of terraced houses in the north of England that barely exist. But some still seem unchanged today. During a recent trip to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, I was struck by the similarities between the photos of traditions and customs my grandfather took and those I saw in person. The indigenous Quechua and Aymara cultures seem just as strong today as they were when my grandfather visited in 1978. The rich stories and experiences captured in these photos are of invaluable value to me.
One of Herbert Smith's photographs taken in Afghanistan in 1974, before the Soviet invasion.
Herbert Smith
He visited a country, then returned to the UK where he developed the photographs he had taken and, with the precision of a doctor, catalogued all the images by location and date. He compiled a vast collection of these photographs, covering a wide range of subjects. These are the postcards I am now using to tell his story in my project, “A Blank Wall”.
“A Blank Wall” was born from my discovery of this mountain of photographs. They may have been wrapped in dusty garbage bags, but thanks to my grandfather's meticulous care, they were in perfect condition. When I first started looking through the negatives and slides, I realized that there were artistically and culturally interesting photographs hidden among the countless boxes. Cultures far apart, from 1940s England to Leningrad at the height of the Cold War, from Swedes in Stockholm to Cholitas (indigenous women) in Bolivia. I set up this archive and project in 2022 to make these photographs available to the world through social media and exhibitions, and to start digitizing these precious images for my family and future generations. This is a large postcard from my grandfather.
But I didn't just want to share images. Postcards sent from far away inspire a sense of travel. Could I experience some of the journey of my grandfather's life? Could I travel the countries he visited, find the places he went to and recreate the images 40 years later? Could I tell his story through my own travels?
Tokyo photographed in 1982
Herbert Smith
I decided to put this theory to the test and left the UK in January last year, with a loose plan to travel from Argentina through South and Central America to Mexico, inspired by my grandfather's photographs of the continent. He visited Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador in 1978, travelling to remote mountains and villages to photograph rural life and stunning landscapes. Before leaving the UK, I digitised as many of my photos as I could, thinking that if I showed them the images on my phone, they might help me find places.
I spent the next year traveling looking for the places and communities I saw in these photographs, with mixed results — many areas are completely different than they were 40 years ago, and some are completely inaccessible. Still, I was able to reach some of the exact same places, cultures, and people my grandfather visited, and even recreate some of his photographs in the exact same locations.
He visited Machu Picchu in 1978, when the ancient Inca ruins were less visited and less well maintained than they are today. With his photos and my limited Spanish, I was able to convince the guards to help me tour the ruins, mimicking the exact angles and positions of his photos. They were as interested in his journey as I was.
When I was traveling in Ecuador, I was looking for a church, and the only information I could find in my grandfather's photo was “Quito – 1978.” With the help of Reddit forums, my Instagram followers, and the people of Quito, I found the exact location in Riobamba, a rural town in the hills outside the capital, and recreated the photo.
Nearly half a century later, standing in the same place and taking the same photograph with my grandfather, whom I had never met, was a feeling I had never experienced before.
It opened the door to exploring more of the countries my grandfather visited, and I realized that his photographs not only inspire me, but also help me connect with people around the world by identifying places and showcasing cultures – connections my grandfather would have understood.
See more images at instagram.com/blankwall.uk or ablankwall.uk
See more photos of Herbert Smith
Hong Kong, 1986
Jack Smith
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