The Photography of Jules Aarons
Born in the New York City borough of The Bronx in October of 1921, Jules Aarons was an American space physicist and photographer. He is recognized for his scientific
studies of radio-wave propagation as well as his documentary photography of Boston’s mid-twentieth century ethnic neighborhoods.
The son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Jules Aarons was raised in a working-class environment during the economic challenges of the interwar period, which included the Great Depression era that affected many families in the manufacturing trades. He studied at City College of New York and graduated in May of 1942 with a Bachelor Degree in Education. After serving in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, Aarons studied physics at Boston University, where he earned his Master of Science in Physics in 1949.
As a Fulbright scholar, Aarons completed his Doctorate in Science at the University of Paris in 1954. He specialized in the study of ionospheric scintillations, the rapid fluctuations in radio wave amplitude and phase caused by irregularities in the ionosphere’s electron density, and their effects on communication and navigational systems. From 1948 to 1981, Arrons worked as senior scientist at the Air Force Geophysics Research Laboratory at Hanscom Field in Massachusetts; his research led to
improvements in satellite and global positioning technology.
In 1957, Jules Aarons formed the Joint Satellite Studies Group, an international collective that studied atmospheric effects on satellite signals. This group expanded to become the Beacon Satellite Studies; its ionospheric monitoring stations proved useful in designs for the Air Force’s space-based communication and navigation systems. In 1981, Aarons became a research professor in Boston University’s astronomy department and helped establish the university’s Center fo Space Physics in 1987. Throughout his decades-long research, he published over one hundred scientific papers and authored three books on such topics as radio astronomy, magnetic storm phases and ionospheric scintillations.
Aarons’s interest in photography began in his youth and continued through his college classes and later scientific work. His many travels around the world for seminars and studies offered opportunities for his photography. Interested in a social documentary approach to photography, Aarons was influenced by the work of Sid Grossman, a co-founder of New York’s Photo League; 
Austrian-born humanist photographer Lisette Model; French humanist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson: and the Hungarian-French photographer and filmmaker Brassaï who captured the essence of Paris in his work.
Jules Aarons is known primarily for his late 1940s and early 1950s street-photography of Boston’s ethnically diverse West End and its predominantly Italian North End neighborhoods. During the process of developing his own unique style, he initially began taking photographs of the West End in 1947 to document Boston’s streets and people. Using a double-lens Rolleiflex, Aarons tried to capture the West End’s social environment without being intrusive. To avoid any formal posing, he shot informal photos of ordinary people in public settings, mostly without their knowledge.
After retiring from Massachusetts’s Hanscom Field Laboratory in 1981, Aarons became a professor at Boston University where he led projects on space physics. It was at this time that he ceased his photography, not for lack of time, but due the fact that his eyes had grown too irritated by darkroom chemicals. A research professor emeritus of
astronomy and space physics as well as an acclaimed photographer, Jules Aarons died at the age of eighty-two in Boston on the twenty-first of November in 2008.
Jules Aarons’s work is in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Bibliotheque Nationale and Bibliotheque Historique in Paris, and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, among others. In addition to his scientific works, he published six volumes of photographs and essays, the most recent being the 2006 “Public Spaces/Public Moments: The Photographs of Jules Aarons” published through Boston’s Kayafas Gallery.
Notes: All images, unless noted, are from the Jules Aarons Estate/ Kayafas Gallery, Boston
The Jules Aarons website is located at: https://www.julesaarons.com
The Red River Paper Blog has a 2020 article by Arthur H. Bleich entitled “Jules Aarons: Mind of a Scientist, Eye of an Artist” on its site: https://www.redrivercatalog.com/blog/jules-aarons-mind-of-a-scientist-eye-of-an-artist.html?srsltid=AfmBOorECX90BByO-Zo1RQ895pqACtLGBdKeknSDhM6yu9isuMmSzD9K
Award-winning author William Landay has a 2010 article on Jules Aarons entitled “The Street Photography of Jules Aarons” on his website: https://www.williamlanday.com/2010/02/02/the-street-photography-of-jules-aarons/
Top Insert Image: Kalman Zabarsky, “Jules Aarons”, circa 2001, Gelatin Silver Print, Brown University Bridge, Vol 5 No. 10, October 2001
Second Insert Image: Jules Aarons, “Self Portrait”, “West End, Boston” Series. Gelatin Silver Print, Jules Aarons Estate/Kayafas Gallery, Boston
Third Insert Image: Jules Aarons, Untitled (Group Photo of Nine Boys), “West End, Boston” Series, Gelatin Silver Print, Jules Aarons Estate, Kayafas Gallery, Boston
Bottom Insert Image: Jules Aarons, Untitled (Lounging). 1947-1953, “North End, Boston” Series, . Gelatin Silver Print, Jules Aarons Estate/Kayafas Gallery, Boston