Photobooks are time portals. They permit you to relive a moment lost in time and memory. And when you gather a sizeable sum of such photographs, the doorway becomes a repository of one’s history—a tangible proof of lived reality. Interestingly, a photobook surpasses the clutter of digital imageries and snapshots on Instagram, which serves as a dopamine casino. Every image here represents a chip, welcoming you to recreate Russian roulette of 15 seconds of fame. In our unpredictable world, photobooks are the foremost entities that allow us to experience the world intimately. Jonathan Becker: Lost Time is one such upcoming photobook that will enable you to savor the renowned photographer’s five decades of work.
The lead image is courtesy of Jonathan Becker and Phaidon. The Phoblographer has permission to use the photos.
Printed by Phaidon, an esteemed global publisher, Jonathan Becker: Lost Time is the first book that showcases Becker’s private and editorial projects. Set to debut in October 2024, it features over 200 photographs from the past 50 years. To give you a little idea about Becker, his journey with photography commenced when he was an adolescent, using a Rolleiflex camera. During a summer course on surrealism at Harvard University, Becker wrote about French photographer Brassaï, who would then become his mentor. During his extensive career, Becker worked at his spontaneous kitchen studio in New York, then with illustrious magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, Town & Country, W, and Interview. But that is not all; Becker also went on to photograph the globe’s most celebrated politicians, writers, filmmakers, and royalties in the comforts of their residents and studios.
Lost Time mirrors Becker’s ingenuity as an artist. The volume reveals his ability to create earnest narratives, while his photographs serve as a social study of those around him. Each frame, carefully curated, is an excellent fine-art portrait while showcasing to its viewers that photographers are critical observers, chronicling every overlooked, peculiar detail. One would enjoy how the pictures of figures such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Arthur Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cindy Sherman, André Leon Talley, François Truffaut, Gloria Vanderbilt, Gore Vidal, Diana Vreeland, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, are captured in diverse settings—parties, dinners, or in front of monuments. Above all, Becker portrayed his subjects with the utmost elegance and splendor, capturing the essence of their personalities and surroundings.
However, it is only about photographs. Jonathan Becker: Lost Time also carries an essay by Becker, along with anecdotes from his life with Brassaï, projects at Condé Nast, and his adventures when photographing our planet’s momentous stars. In the introduction to the book, Mark Holborn—the editor who has collaborated with stalwarts such as Lucian Freud, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and more—provides insight into Becker’s vision and how he captured such timeless portraits. Holborn further highlights Brassaï’s passion with French novelist Marcel Proust and urges readers to witness Lost Time with the “view that it is a photobiography of sorts, a reflection of an entire life… Jonathan’s, too, is a fiction featuring characters who have inhabited his life.”
A luxurious cloth case complements the brilliant illustrations, too. The book’s covers consist of tipped-on photographs: on the front, there is a striking blue diving board over the glimmering ocean of Cap d’Antid’Antibes); on the back, there is a portrait of Becker, sitting at a table in a Buenos Aires hotel (1986). Jonathan Becker: Lost Time decisively presents Becker’s graceful, intricate photographs to the world. The book showcases his exceptional and sensitive ways of seeing, making Jonathan Becker one of the most crucial raconteurs of our time.