The Agony and the Ecstasy: Jack Webb by Glen Luchford documents a professional bond over the years - Men's Folio
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The Agony and the Ecstasy: Jack Webb by Glen Luchford documents a professional bond over the years

  • By Men's Folio

British photographer Glen Luchford has shot and filmed hundreds of fashion images over the span of his more than two-decade career. He met Jack Webb — a photographer in his own right — in the nineties and hired him as a lighting assistant, using Webb as a stand-in for all his test shots. These images are usually trashed at the end of a shoot session, but for some reason Luchford held onto them, and now they’re being published alongside the final copies with the actual subjects (often models and celebrities).

Webb is certainly not a typical subject for a fashion photographer, but Luchford managed to imbue the series of candid shots with the same cinematic quality as his campaigns for Prada, Calvin Klein and, most recently, Gucci. The cover captures the book’s concept with a lenticular double image inlay of Webb and a naked Malgosia Bela jumping out of a chair. Flipping its pages, one can witness how Luchford’s photography style evolves as Webb reinvents with age — he sports a different haircut, he becomes more expressive, his body language changes. The Agony and the Ecstasy is a kind of private diary between photographer and assistant, friend and friend. Or as Luchford puts it: “It’s a book about love.”

Available at Dover Street Market Singapore.