Jules Aarons was born in New York City and served during World War II.  After studying physics at Boston University, he won a Fulbright scholarship and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Paris.  As a physicist, Aarons worked as the senior scientist at the Air Force Geophysics Research Lab and was one of the pioneers in the study of radio-wave propagation.   Over the course of his long and distinguished scientific career, Aarons published over a hundred scientific papers.

However, Aarons was not just a scientist.  He was also a photographer who was widely acclaimed for the pictures of Boston street life that he captured in the late 1940s and the 1950s.  Aarons photography was spontaneous, with the subjects often but not always unaware that they were being photographed.  As a street photographer, Aarons focused on capturing the day-to-day life of people of all classes and backgrounds.

A small sampling of his work can be found below: