A photography collection depicting the beauty and brokenness of life
Mark Raphael Baker (1959–2023) was a renowned writer, teacher and an inspiring speaker. His photography – until now
largely unknown to the public – introduces a new dimension to his life’s work.
Baker’s photos belong to the genre of street and reportage photography. Over decades and across continents he captured
the themes universal to humanity that readers will recognise from his writing: memory, survival, grief, humanity and hope.
Whether his subject was people, nature, cities or shantytowns, the Jewish or the wider world, Baker’s photography feels
intimate. He was attuned to life’s fragments – its day-to-day-ness, excitement, beauty, horror, loneliness and connectedness.
And always its magnificence, reassuring or dramatic. He was unreservedly open to life: ‘I am overwhelmed by how much I
love this world’, he wrote in his final memoir A Season of Death before he died from pancreatic cancer in 2023.
Edited by his wife Michelle Lesh, In Love With the World pairs Baker’s photography with excerpts from his writing. Together
they offer new perspectives on and deepen the themes that preoccupied Baker throughout his career and personal life.
Mark Raphael Baker is also the author of three memoirs, The Fiftieth Gate (1997), Thirty Days (2017) and A Season of Death
(2024). He was associate professor at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation in the School of Philosophy, History,
International Studies at Monash University.
Published April 2025 ISBN 9780646711218 Subject Photography
