The photographer who shot 500 album covers for the likes of Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand died at 41, then his legendary work vanished for decades. Don Bronstein's astonishing lost images make me ponder: what happens to our work when we're gone?

A black and white street photograph of a man standing in the middle of a crowded Maxwell Street Market holding a resonator guitar.

You've backed up your drives. You've printed your favorites. You've told yourself: "One day, I'll organize it all properly." But Don Bronstein didn't get that chance. The photographer died in 1968, aged 41, on assignment for Playboy in Mexico. And everything he'd made disappeared into the attic of his family home in Chicago, where it sat untouched for the best part of four decades.

This is all the more shocking, considering that Bronstein was one of the most productive photographers in postwar America. As art director and photographer for Chess Records, the label that launched Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf and Etta James, he shot and designed more than 500 album covers for labels including Atlantic, Verve and Impulse!.