Look to the past and you may miss the future, but memory lane isn’t always a bad place to be. British photographer Mr Terry O’Neill takes us on a satisfyingly nostalgic trip with his book Rare And Unseen: A Portfolio Of Vintage Prints, published last year to coincide with his 80th birthday. It features a selection of photos from the two million images in Mr O’Neill’s archive of pictures taken in the 1960s and 1970s, when the former jazz drummer started snapping young bands, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, for Fleet Street newspapers.

Mr O’Neill doesn’t take as many pictures these days. “There are no Hollywood stars any more, really,” he told MR PORTER in an interview a few years ago.

“And anyway, I’ve already done everyone.” This is no humblebrag. The photographer has captured images of everyone from Sir Winston Churchill and Mr Nelson Mandela to Ms Diana Ross. He’s the insider’s insider, having shadowed Hollywood stars, musicians and politicians, such as Messrs Frank Sinatra and David Bowie. The foreword to Rare And Unseen is written by Ms Raquel Welch and Mr O’Neill was once married to Ms Faye Dunaway (he took that famous morning-after-the-Oscars-by-the-pool photograph).

Black and white images of these icons – some published for the first time – along with original press prints and contact sheets are featured in the 235-page book. Long before it would take 45 minutes to come up with the perfect breezy Instagram caption, Mr O’Neill handwrote descriptions on the back of his photos simply stating the events happening in them.

Just like a millennial with imposter syndrome, he would often think he could have done a better job with his pictures. With hindsight comes the benefit of clarity. He told The Guardian last year, “The perfectionist in me always left me thinking I could have taken a better shot. But now when I look at photos of all the icons I’ve shot – like Mandela, Sir Winston Churchill and Sinatra – the memories come flooding back and I think, ‘Yeah, I did all right.’”