While I was on my recent trip to New York I was hanging out with photographer friend Cole Barash and his studio mates. We were all out having drinks one night and somebody brought up the negative collection. They explained the story how this guy would go to flea markets and dig up rare negatives, then scan and print them and sell the prints. Sounded cool, but I never expected him to find such rare and important negatives: photos of The Ramones, Chuck Barry, Rod Stewart, MLK, Muhammed Ali — as well as beautiful candid moments from the past few generations. I was so intrigued by the project I tracked down the mastermind behind the project, Matthew Salacuse to do an intevriew. I knew it would take somebody with a keen eye and a lot of patience to pull off a project like this. Along the way I found out he is a very talented (and well known) photographer himself. —Michael Cukr

Check out the Negative Collection work here. 

And check out Matt’s personal work here.