Tim Page

Renowned for his color images of the Vietnam War, British photographer Tim Page (born 1944) has now delved deep into his black-and-white archives of the conflict for the first time. Nam Contact harks back to an era when 36 frames on a roll of film had to tell the story of a particular action. Edited with Stephen Dupont, this book is Page’s intricate look at his contact sheets and single images from those sheets, as well as the chronicle and notes of his diaries made about all he experienced during this intense period. It also contains letters from some of the most noted journalists of the time and further ephemera from what became known as the “first media war” and the first and last war without media censorship.

Page covered diverse actions with the South Vietnamese, Americans, Koreans and Australians. Nam Contact explores the period from 1965, before the marines had arrived, to 1969, when American troops numbered over 500,000. This was also the year Page’s involvement in the Vietnam War ended, after being injured by a landmine. His images have since become iconic; as has the lifestyle he shared with his band of brothers, depicted in the television documentary Frankie’s House (1992), as well as in numerous movies about the conflict.

British-born photographer Tim Page (1944–2022) has been called the original gonzo journalist, allegedly the inspiration behind Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now and the man who brought the 60s counterculture to Saigon. Four times wounded in Southeast Asia and twice declared dead, Page became legendary as a freelance photographer who seemingly knew no fear and whose Vietnam pictures appeared in publications around the world.
The Final Page contains the last interview that Page gave before his death. Speaking with American writer Jacques Menasche, Page, facing the end, shares an elegiac remembrance of bygone times, as well as the scars—both psychic and physical—that he carried. The book includes images from Vietnam by Page, portraits of the photographer by his friend and editor Stephen Dupont, and a personal recollection by his colleague Martin Stuart-Fox. The result is a paean to an extraordinary man and an extraordinary life.