JADRAN LAZIĆ: 50 Years of Photography

Jadran Lazić’s two-volume monograph is the result of fifty years of intensive, dynamic, creative, propulsive, and persistent fieldwork, taking photographs of actors, politicians, singers, writers, footballers, basketball players, starlets, and others whose lives and careers have been popularized by international magazines. Lazić, and his photographs, featured in these same magazines, have taken part in shaping the Western world’s collective memory and its mass media’s focus on social developments. With over 1000 photos, monograph is a retrospective of the postwar 20th century to the present day. Although Jadran Lazić still takes pictures – he owns a photo agency in Los Angeles, where he lives from 1987 – this monumental project is the crown of his journey paved with courage and driven by talent and impulse, with no guarantees of success but with a conviction that it is the only true path. From a chronological perspective, one can view these two volumes as JadranLazić’s utobiography. The first volume showcases fifty years of experience as told by Lazić himself. The second volume includes Renato Baretić – known for his award-winning bestseller The Eighth Commissioner – as Lazić’s biographer and co-author. In a sea of fierce international competition, photographs of Jadran Lazić were recognized by stringent, acclaimed editors of magazines solding in millions of copies. Jadran Lazić was born in Split, Croatia in 1952 where he is as a high school student started working in the Split bureau of Vjesnik Publishing House – first as a city desk photojournalist and then as a photographer of national pop-music, film, TV and sports celebrities. That stage soon became too small for him, so he set out to Paris to face the uncertain fate awaiting him there. But in a few months upon arriving to Paris he was hired by the renowned Sipa Press photo agency. From a paparazzo fishing for a chance to photograph a celebrity in an intimate situation, he soon evolved into a professional photographer to whom everyone gladly posed. Since 1974. Jadran Lazić becomes one of the world’s top news and celebrity photographers. His photos have been syndicated internationally to elite magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, Hello, Gala, Stern, People and In Style. Even twice his photos Newsweek proclamed the World Photograph of the Year, the dream of every photojournalist. The first such episode took place in 1982: He was the only one in the world who managed to photograph Leonid Brezhnev lying in state (Newsweekdeclared it the World Photograph of the Year). The second sensational episode took place three years later, when he made a series of portraits of Abu Abbas, the leader of PLF and the most wanted man in the world. During 1980’s Jadran Lazić put himself into line of fire while covering the war between Iran and Iraq. After dodging bullets and skirting death, Lazic decided to make his mark in Hollywood, aiming his trusty camera at the stars. And now, with over 300 covers to his credit, Lazic has earned the honor of being one of the world’s finest celebrity photographers. The famous stars that have posed for him are Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway, Robert De Niro, Richard Gere, Sean Penn, Jodie Foster and Johnny Depp, among others. The timeless photos have reveled a depth of soul and spirit from these actors, transforming the shoots into true works of art.