Walter Hanlon

During the early 1950s, Mr Hanlon, of Otley, had been the photographer of choice for prestige publications to chronicle a golden age of jazz, showbusiness and motor racing.

Stars of the calibre of Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong sat for him, he captured Errol Flynn and Danny Kaye on their visits to London, and he was in the pit lane to picture the likes of Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn. His candid, evocative and beautifully lit pictures graced the pages of Vogue, New Musical Express and many LP and EP covers.

But then a career in the burgeoning TV industry beckoned, and Mr Hanlon put his camera away, along with about 2,000 prints and negatives. And there they stayed until the early 2000s, when some of his pictures began to be pirated for CD covers and books.

That prompted him to revisit his pictures, and he determined that they should not be used in breach of his copyright. Mr Hanlon also decided to try to get them exhibited. Harrogate's Mercer Art Gallery jumped at the chance in 2004, and the exhibition of 70 pictures later moved on to the Ferens Gallery, in Hull.

The pictures were a revelation to those who saw them, forgotten treasures that formed an extraordinarily vivid snapshot of a lost age of music and glamour.

Mr Hanlon had been born in Glasgow in 1926 and joined the Merchant Navy after leaving school at 14, serving on wartime convoys. Immediately after the war, he taught himself guitar and eventually became a professional musician, touring with ENSA and USO packages to entertain troops. During that period, he became interested in photography, and decided to make a career of it.

His contacts in the music business led to him photographing British and visiting American musicians, as well as stars of stage and screen, but the world of TV caught his attention and he developed an interest in lighting, which led to a job at Rediffusion in 1955. Mr Hanlon later moved to London Weekend TV. He was head-hunted to join the fledgling Yorkshire TV in 1969, and worked on such prestige productions as Hadleigh, Raffles and The Good Companions, serving as the company's acting head of lighting before retiring in 1989.

The success of his exhibitions in Harrogate and Hull led to a book in 2008, 1950s Jazz in London and Paris, which will be re-printed this year. A further exhibition at the Mercer in the autumn, concentrating on motor sport, stage and screen, was another success. Eight of Mr Hanlon's portraits – including bandleader and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton, entertainer Winifred Atwell and comedian Tommy Trinder –now form part of the National Portrait Gallery's permanent archive.

Mr Hanlon, who died on December 23, leaves a wife, Jane, two daughters, a stepson and a stepdaughter and four grandchildren. The funeral is on January 15 at Stonefall Crematorium, Harrogate, at 12 noon.