The world-renowned artist turned his camera towards his own demons for the first time, telling through images how he lost himself and found himself again.

Tombor is a Budapest-based creative photographer. He began his international career in 2003 in Milan, and then worked for several years from New York, where he collaborated with leading magazines and brands as a fashion photographer. 

His work has been featured in numerous domestic and international publications - including The New York Times, Time and Vogue magazines - plus in campaigns and exhibitions. 

He has been a recovering addict for seven years.

"Lost & Found is the most personal series of my life so far, an exposure and confrontation with my addiction. The primary goal of the photographs was to photograph the many experiences I had through my addiction, and to make them more understandable to me when viewed as images."

"It is a dual world, full of horror and pleasure, a swirling reality where, on the one hand, I slowly lost touch with the person who started drinking and doing drugs, and on the other hand, a new and stronger alliance was built between me and the substance than ever before," Zoltán Tombor is quoted as saying.
 

The photographer's series of struggle, joy and sorrow, ecstasy, fear of death, longing and forgiveness tells an intimate story about the multifaceted nature of addiction.

The exhibition is a kind of self-confession: a personal account of years of substance abuse, the symbolic phenomena of cocaine and alcohol addiction, secrecy, shame, various forms of temptation, intense life situations, the difficulties of those around him, and recovery from addiction, conveyed through his applied and autonomous photographic works and family archives.

The curator of the exhibition, Emese Mucsi, recalled that personal stories typically did not appear in Tombor's applied works, but in this context, some of his fashion photographs also receive a new interpretation, pointing out the possible connections between the fashion world, showbiz, celebrity culture and substance abuse.

Tombor was guided and helped in his recovery process by doctor Gábor Máté's book The Demon of Craving - Get to Know Your Addictions, and psychiatrist Anna Lembke's bestseller Dopamine Era - How to Find Balance in a World Built on Addictions.

The exhibition will be on display at the Capa Center until January 18, 2026.

More:
Capa Center
1065 Budapest, Nagymező utca 8.
 

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