At LensCulture, we believe photobooks are some of the most intimate and rewarding ways to engage with a photographer’s work and vision. Well-designed books welcome us into whole new worlds and different ways of seeing—and they can be compelling objects of art themselves.
For this end-of-the-year list, we asked friends and colleagues around the world to recommend their personal favorite photobooks of 2023. As you will see, it’s an eclectic mix, and this compilation represents a wide range of personal tastes. As such, these titles do not pretend to be the “best” books of the year, but they are personal favorites that these photography experts like to share with their friends.
It was fun and surprising for us to compile this list of favorites, and we hope you will discover some inspiration here, too. Enjoy!
—The Editors, LensCulture
Coming and Going by Jim Goldberg. Published by MACK.
I do not know how to describe the brilliance contained in this book. A mash up of personal moments, life, love, loss, reimagined projects, objects, and ephemera. It’s as if Jim let us into his mind and memories, and there is so much to explore. Coming and Going is one of those books that rewards you with something new every time you open it, and I am looking forward to more time with this title.
— Chris McCall, Director, Pier 24 Photography
Coming and Going is a tome surveying Goldberg’s life from 1980 to the present. The book is a tidal wave of memories — photographs, film, collage, text, letters, and other ephemera — covering his marriage (and later divorce), the birth of his daughter, and the deaths of his parents. It is heartbreaking, mundane, joyful, and utterly exhausting.
I haven’t always viewed it in order. I often pick it up and thumb through a half-dozen pages at random before returning it to the center of the credenza in our living room, as a kind of challenge. A few well-worn spreads that come to mind include: “DAD’S LAST SHAVE,” a stunning image of white hairs floating against a black plane; a soft-focus photograph of red poppies with a small polaroid of a woman in a black bathing suit, captioned “THIS IS THE MOMENT I FELL IN LOVE;” a pile of Lucky Charms cereal on a rug, in full color but not entirely unlike the shaving image, strangely; “CAVITIES AS OF 2009: Jim: 29; RUBY 1,” with a string of dental X-rays and a single-color image of a retainer. At 360 pages and 10 x 14 inches, it’s a heavy lift and exquisitely so.
— Kathryn Humphries, Art Director, Harper’s Magazine
Uniform by Kacey Jeffers. Self-published.
When my copy of Uniform arrived in the mail earlier this year, I was instantly transported to my own childhood, as I spent nine years in Catholic school in Chicago wearing starched white, round collared blouses and variations of plaid skirts and jumpers.
But more than just a reminder of my own childhood, Uniform stood out to me because Kacey Jeffers’ collection of portraits of children in various school uniforms across the island of Nevis is a delicate body of work that does something rare — it documents an aspect of childhood while not sentimentalizing it. Jeffers quietly documents each child through formal composition and brilliant colors, affording them a kind of weightiness and dignity. This project pleasantly reminds me of Dawoud Bey’s work, particularly Class Pictures.
— Danielle A. Scruggs, Photographer, Photo Editor
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Takashi Homma. Published by MACK.
The iconic Japanese woodblock print, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” depicts boats traveling across a tumultuous sea. A diminutive Mount Fuji can be seen in the distance, framed within the hollow of an enormous crest. This scene is an integral part of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, a series created by the Ukiyo-e artist Hokusai at the outset of the 19th century.
Like its namesake, Takahi Homma’s latest publication also includes images of Mount Fuji from thirty-six vantage points, capturing the snow-capped volcano amidst the dynamic city skylines, idyllic lakeside towns, and tranquil rural villages of today. Homma uses pinhole photography to create his distinctive black-and-white, and color landscapes, as stand-alone compositions and multi-panel panoramas that seamlessly span two-page spreads. Some scenes are printed upside down—a nod to the pinhole camera, as well as a subtle invitation to reconsider the act of looking. As minimal as it is complex, Homma’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji evokes the enduring legacy of this cultural and religious symbol, while gracefully side-stepping the spectacle of conventional perspectives.
— Liz Sales, Artist-Writer, and Educator
Divine by Delphine Diallo. Published by Hat and Beard Press.
Delphine Diallo, a visionary artist, seamlessly blends traditional image-making techniques with a contemporary flair, creating a unique visual language that transcends artistic boundaries. In her groundbreaking work, she addresses a significant gap in representation, as photobooks centered on black women remain a rarity in the art world. Diallo not only captures the decisive moment but intricately constructs entire scenes that resonate with authenticity and cultural richness.
— Kris Graves, Photographer
Woman Wearing Ring Shields Face From Flash by Odette England. Published by Skinnerboox.
“Load, aim, shoot” one says. Are they talking about a camera or a gun? Much has been written on the ethics of photography, about power dynamics and how the camera can violate. In Woman Wearing Ring Shields Face From FlashOdette England connects the visual and verbal language of guns, cameras, and violence against women. The book consists of found images of hands, men photographing women without their consent, women shielding their faces with their hands, and men holding guns. Page by page, like a steady drumbeat, England points to the ways in which violence has been normalized in society. It’s impossible to put the book down without wondering about one’s own relationship to the camera.
— Magali Duzant, Artist and Writer
Threshold by Mårten Lange. Self-published.
Threshold by Swedish photographer Mårten Lange is a quiet, poetic meditation on empty spaces, vacant apartments mostly. The book also includes a beautiful short text by the artist, reflecting on the sensation of giving up a home, a last time turning around at the door and looking at an empty space that is filled with memories, the echo of the sound of the key locking up one last time. However, these could just as well be images of new beginnings! A key, just picked up from a landlord or a realtor, opened the door for the first time and we are looking at a promising fresh start, a space for hopes and dreams. To me, the emotional balance between these two possible perspectives onto the same images make this such a strong body of work. The book is elegantly designed and published by the artist himself. Available through his website. To me, it is easily the mostly beautiful photobook I have held in my hands in a very long time.
— Robert Morat, Robert Morat Galerie
Better in the Night Than His Rider by Francesco Merlini. Published by Départ pour l’Image.
The original phrase “Much better in the dark than his rider”- refers to the horse’s night vision compared to human vision. Through his images, Francesco Merlini takes us inside a real dream. The selected sequence of images refers to the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep. A metaphor suggesting each of us to trust our unconscious. Surrendering to the dream world through these images that represent the truest meaning of photography. Thanks to imagination, the dream matter turns into the mind’s real object again.
— Manila Camarini, Senior Picture Editor, d la Repubblica
Leafing through Francesco Merlini’s book is like plunging into the magma of the unconscious, where nightmares, dreams and indecipherable clues lurk. The photos were taken by the author at different moments and in different places: there are great distances in time and space, and yet the photos seem to be part of a constellation of meaning. The title is taken from a 19th-century manual on optics, which is also reproduced in the publication, and refers to the night vision of a horse compared to that of a human. It seems to be an invitation to indulge in the ‘animal power of imagination’.
— Francesca Marani, Senior Photo Editor Vogue Italia
A brilliant example of collaboration between a publishing house and an artist, Better In The Dark Than His Rider is a book born out of an archive of unpublished images Francesco Marlini collected in the course of his career. These fragments are joined in an oneiric volume where you wonder what characterizes our existence and how we recall it through the chambers of our memories. An open narrative, where image sequencing is paired with that of the pages background color - that smoothly shift from grey to blue and red - to enhance, change or simply question the process of embracing this beautiful journey.
— Giuseppe Oliverio, Founder and Director Ph Museum
Napoli by Anders Petersen. Published by L’Artiere Edizioni.
As he always does, Anders Petersen immerses himself in the place he explores, going beyond the obvious, getting closer and closer. So making a portrait of Naples becomes almost a way to shoot an autoportrait, to explore his own desires and dreams. The pictures were shot in 2022, during Spot home gallery’s first artist residency. All b/w and vertical, they are collected in a precious book published by the talented Gianluca e Gianmarco Gamberini, founders of L’Artiere Edizioni.
— Elena Boille, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Internazionale
A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave by Judith Stenneken. Self-published.
I have a soft spot for partially handmade books. And for excellent printing. And for books that tell important stories that deal with current issues and are universal at the same time. Such a book is A Mountain is Only a Slow Wave, self-published by Judith Stenneken. Inherent to her practice is the issue of change. She finds it in the personal stories of refugees living in the transformed Tempelhof Airport (Berlin) and in nature. The book combines two bodies of work that are literally intertwined simply by two cross-stitches. I have never seen this kind of binding before. It is solid yet delicate – just like the book’s contents.
— Alexa Becker, Freelance Representative / Kehrer Verlag
Remember Me by Preston Gannaway. Published by GOST Books.
One can flip through Preston Gannaway’s new photo book Remember Me without reading one word and know what the entire series is about. Gannaway was commissioned originally to cover a grieving child with the loss of his mother, around 18 years ago. She stayed with his family and documented them through every aspect of life, long after the original assignment went to print. Gannaway’s tones and composition ignite so much emotion, and yes — grief — in your soul. She invites us to witness years and years of her connection with this family. I’m hoping this is just the first chapter out of many to come.
— Anna Alexander, Director of Photography, Wired
Otra Alquimia / Other Alchemy by Roberto Fernández Ibáñez. Published by the Centro de Fotografía, Montevideo, Uruguay.
The Uruguayan artist Roberto Fernández Ibáñez is truly a Renaissance man: a poet, philosopher, craftsman, and darkroom alchemist. His images and words weave concepts and emotions that entangle the mind. A master of visual metaphor and historical resonance, his photographs suggest ideas and evoke feelings that are hard to describe prosaically, perhaps because they remain tantalizingly in a state of always becoming. As the artist himself puts it: “The object of study of the alchemist is of that which is born when light and darkness face each other. And in their midst: matter, change, transmutation. Matter, darkness, light: that’s what this book is about.” And a profoundly, poetically magical book it is, too.
— Alasdair Foster, Writer, Curator, and Publisher of Talking Pictures
-40C, 2015-2020 by A Yin Photography. Published by A Yin.
A nomad from a tribe of nomads, famous Chinese artist A Yin, spent five years devoting time and resources to creating an epic about his gods and his favorites, the small Mongolian horses he knew from childhood: They can survive the winter on the windy steppe, where the temperature is -40 degrees Celsius. The result is a powerful book that combines four languages: visual, Mongolian, Mandarin and English. The book is a classic photo album with those invisible (to non-professionals) levels of design that has made the book an eternal desire for bibliophiles. What is this book about? - Horses? - Rather, a sincere expression of the artist’s identity. The pleasure comes not so much from the theme or the individual image, but from the artist’s creation of the book as an innermost altar for those he worships.
— Irina Chmyreva, PhD, Writer, Curator, Art Director PhotoVisa
The Sapper by Bharat Sikka. Published by Fw:Books.
The Sapper is full of subtle gestures. In its depiction of the bond between Sikka and his father, a former military engineer, the book collapses its author and subject into one. We find the artist’s father as a source and a protagonist, appearing both through his possessions and as himself, a reenactor directed by his son. Across the roomy arrangements of original and archival photography in the book (designed beautifully by Hans Gremmen), we see a somewhat universal negotiation play out: How close is close enough to see our parents outside ourselves, how far is far enough to see the full arc of their lives? Each image that emerges from this push and pull feels both intimate and “hard-won” — as Charlotte Cotton writes in her essay for the book. Cumulatively, The Sapper feels like an expansive portrait composed of fragments.
— Varun Nayar, Associate Managing Editor, Aperture Magazine
Canto by Stuart Leech. Self-published.
Canto explores the pressing migration ‘crisis’ within the East Kent border of the UK and takes a deep dive into the realities of the landscape showing years of neglect and deprivation. Stuart successfully captures the destitute environment through his eerie black and white images and cleverly alludes to the aftermath that Brexit has had on not only this small region, but the whole nation at large.
Canto forces us to face the politics at play when it comes to issues surrounding migration and how spaces and places can be used as a ploy to either draw attention to or distract from what the real issue is.
— Anne Nwakalor, Founding Editor | No! Wahala Magazine
Makino, Portraits of Plants by Ichigo Sugawara. Published by Hokuryukan.
“Without plants, humans cannot live.
If you love plants. There will be no more conflict in the world.”
-Dr. Tomitaro Makino (1862-1957, Botanist)
Photographer Ichigo Sugawara brought back to life the botanical specimens of Dr. Makino’s which he produced nearly 100 years ago. Sugawara, using a 15K high-precision camera, revived them as portraits of living plants, much like a portrait of a person. The collection of photographs reveal every detail of the plants, allowing the viewer to feel their life. The motivations that drive humans to war are too numerous to list, and the recurring fires of war around the world never cease. This collection of photographs allows us to distance ourselves from the daily images of war and consider conflict from a completely different perspective.
— Hideko Kataoka, Photo Editor, Newsweek Japan. Founder and Director, Miiraii Creative
Guilty Grounds by Steffi Reimers. Book designed by Sybren Kuiper.
Guilty Grounds, a photo book of 2023 by Steffi Reimers, encapsulates the essence of the Calabrian landscapes, resonating with the silent narratives of the ‘Ndrangheta’s influence. This profound exploration positions the landscapes as both historical documents and silent witnesses to clandestine activities. The book segregates poetic full-color photographs from stark monochromatic journalistic evidence, offering a multi-layered reader engagement. It contains three distinct sections: the first provides historical context with newspaper articles and portraits; the second features Steffi’s photographs that poetically reconstruct the landscapes; and the third reflects the first, presenting historical images of abduction investigations. This structure upholds the narrative’s integrity, inviting readers into a dialogue and prompting reflection on the complex interplay of beauty, history, and morality.
Emerging from an urgent and thought-provoking exhibition with the same name at Foam by Steffi Reimers, the book was released in a highly limited edition, underscoring its unique narrative that serves as a critical reflection on the impact of crime on society and the environment. It encourages readers to engage with the content actively, with newspaper articles that extend across the spine to the back, encapsulating Steffi’s more abstract images at the book’s very core. This design choice effectively grounds her photographs in reality, keeping them firmly rooted in the gravity of their context.
Guilty Grounds transcends being just a collection of images; it is a profound call to witness and reflection, culminating with the humanizing photograph of the woman mentioned in the text. This book, available directly from the photographer, invites a contemplative journey through a land marked by beauty and transgression, ensuring its place as a seminal work in photographic literature.
— Aya Musa, Curator, Foam
Dior by Sarah Moon. Published by Delpire & Co.
There are three aspects I consider when evaluating a book, as well as when deciding to purchase one. Firstly, the content—does the photography appeal to me? Secondly, the design—this includes the layout, flow, typography, format, and more. Lastly, the execution—particularly the printing quality and paper choice. When I came across the book Dior by Sarah Moon, all these facets seamlessly fell into place like puzzle pieces. Beauty on all three levels. This is how a photography book should be. Sarah Moon’s work is known internationally for its unique beauty and elusive narrative and has enduring appeal thanks to its own alluring visual language. Regarded as one of France’s best fashion photographers working today, to find a new book by the artist, now in her early 80s, is something really special. Published by Delpire & Co, the publishing house founded by Moon’s late partner Robert Delpire, Dior by Sarah Moon is an exquisite three-volume publication following Moon’s visual explorations into three distinct phases of the legendary fashion house.
— Roy Kahmann, Director/Owner Kahmann Gallery
I Won’t Come Down (Io Non Scendo, in the original Italian) by Laura Leonelli. Published by Postcart Edizioni.
A precious and fierce reminder that throughout history women have been climbing trees to see the world from a different perspective. Resilient, revolutionary, feminist, disobedient and free, are those women, starting with Eve, that leave their predestined role of nourishing carer of all things and (literally) climb up the tree of emancipation. Framed in a portable paperback size with a fold out cover that becomes a poster, I Won’t Come Down displays the unusual collection of mostly anonymous images that the journalist Laura Leonelli is gathering: a sisterhood of climbers that wants to change the world. The black and white images spanning the decades of the XX century, are mostly of unknown women but the brief inspiring stories also portray well-known figures like Louisa May Alcott, Simone de Beauvoir, Voltairine de Cleyre, among others. Inspiring, original, powerful, it should become a mandatory reading textbook in schools.
— Arianna Rinaldo, Curator, Author, Festival Director
Bedfellow by Caroline Tompkins. Published by Palm* Studios.
Caroline Tompkins takes you on a terrifying & intoxicating journey of desire in her 2023 monograph, Bedfellow. Her brilliant introductory essay sets in motion a constant state of discomfort while flipping through the sensuous edit of imagery that awaits. What I love so much about the book is its sustained balance of eroticism and horror — the trade we all too often make when putting ourselves in intimate situations. From the foreboding leeches curled up on a male torso to the loving embrace of a nudist couple — every corner of the book is frightfully erotic. A must for those making their way through the cinema list in House of Psychotic Women — you know who you are!
— Elizabeth Renstrom, Photographer
Recaptioning Congo by Sandrine Collard. Published by Lannoo.
Exciting to see this critical publication surface. It represents a brilliant fusion of archival and contemporary dialogues. Given Belgium’s brutal colonial history, this book is both pressing and urgent. It flags the need for different voices and creative responses to how we read the dark side of history. This book provides new perspectives for the reader and opens space for those silenced and framed by Europeans’ eyes. This book importantly turns the stiff lens of colonial presence in the Congo to allow a more detailed and nuanced reading of Europeans in West Africa.
— Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph - Professor of Photography - Rights and Representation. University of the Arts London
Like Rain Falling from the Sky by Nicola Bertasi. Published by Studiofaganel.
Nicola Bertasi has made various trips to Vietnam, finding places, villages or towns, as well as witnesses who suffered napalm or Agent orange bombing by the US army. He also shows how Vietnam is trying to reconvert these war places.
— Xavier Canonne, Director, Le Musée de la Photographie
Megalith-Still by Mimi Plumb. Published by Stanley Barker.
As a photo editor, professionally, and an equestrian, personally, I’m always eager to find photography books that merge my passions. Mimi Plumb’s Megalith-Still does so in such a whimsical manner. I spotted the textless cover of a sleeping horse turned outward on a shelf at The Baltimore Photo Space and it was one of the rare books I had to purchase on the spot. Plumb’s exquisite black and white, square compositions draw you intimately into lives of horses in a way that makes you imagine you are there with the herd. From the literal portraits of the animals to the metaphorical character studies captured in the imprints they’ve left on grass and earth; each page draws you deeper into their realm.
— Chloe Coleman, Senior Photo Assignment Editor, Opinions, Washington Post
The Farm Family Project by Rob MacInnis. Self-published.
The Farm Family Project by Rob MacInnis is a bewilderment. I discovered this book while perusing the shelves at The Photographers’ Gallery in London this fall and was immediately intrigued and perplexed by the imagery. Some of MacInnis’s portraits of animals read like screen tests for a nativity scene in a Christmas play. The animals appear before the camera as being present, in repose, thinking even. The photographer obviously has an affection and respect for his subjects, especially illustrated in the individual animal portraits which really shine. But where things get markedly notable is when MacInnis mixes various farm animals into large group portraits. Using animal handlers, studio lighting, and some digital editing MacInnis makes arresting portraits of groups of animals that we recognize and can really only describe as a family portrait. These imaginative stagings created by MacInnis enlighten us with the understanding that farm animals are more than an array of random cows, pigs, roosters, and sheep, but rather a community of exceptional living creatures.
— Richard Renaldi, Photographer
Madres Terra by Carlos Saavedra and Sebastián Ramírez. Published by Raya.
Madres Terra by Carlos Saavedra and Sebastián Ramírez represents the perfect blend of design, concept and consideration. It is a simple reminder of the power of photography as a tool to communicate the complexities of navigating our brief time on earth.
The book is a memento mori for the poor and disabled young men in Colombia known as the falsos positivos, who were lured in by the government’s promise of work during its armed conflict with guerrilla groups. The men were then murdered and presented as guerrilla fighters to inflate body counts for the Colombian government.
Published by Raya in support of MAFAPO—Madres de los Falsos Positivos de Colombia—the book is cleverly divided in two parts. The first section presents the mothers of the murdered men physically buried in the ground and photographed. The act becomes protest, performance, sculpture and portrait, all in one. The second section is an archive of family documents and ephemera. Cleverly hidden away in folded pages and bound using the Fukurotoji binding method, it is a brutal reminder of the actual lives lost. To access these images one must use a lead weight (seemingly melted down from the same ammunition which penetrated the bodies of the young men) and physically break the pages—an act of destruction. This weight hangs on a red thread that is reminiscent of the bloodshed (a suture soaked through in blood) and the ribbon used to delineate the pages of a bible.
The cover design is brilliant with a physical interpretation of dirt on its surface so compelling I would have a hard time believing it wasn’t real. It slowly leaves a trail on a bookshelf, on other books and on one’s hands—a ghostly yet direct reminder of the earth now holding the bodies of these men. This physical trace encourages the reader to consider their own fortune and in true memento mori fashion, their own fate. Madres Terra is truly a masterpiece of bookmaking, photography and text. I want to send my blessings to the makers and to the mothers of this wonderful project.
— Paul Schiek, Founder of TBW Books and Workshop de Allende
First Génération by Carolina Arantes. Published by Fisheye Editions.
Brazilian photographer Carolina Arantes’s nuanced photographs and in-depth research embrace cultural hybridity in this multi-layered hommage to black French women of different African origins and cultures. The compelling visual narrative begins with the vibrant orange book cover displaying family photographs of young girls — the first of their generation to grow up in France — followed by brightly colored endpapers, evoking African textiles. The beautifully designed book weaves together the women’s diverse stories and perspectives — with different textured paper for text versus images — paralleling the women’s own layered experiences navigating between their two, or more, cultures. With its powerful photographs, personal testimonies, and archival documentation related to cultural identity, First Génération sensitively and successfully communicates the complexities of contemporary multiracial France, including questions of social mobility, cultural and political tensions, and the legacy of its colonial past.
— Kristen Gresh, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Book Of The Road by Daniel Meadows. Published by Bluecoat Press.
Fifty years ago, Daniel Meadows began a unique photographic project; he set off in a repurposed 1948 double-decker bus on a 10,000-mile trip around England. For 14 months he lived and worked on the bus, photographing 958 people in 22 towns and cities across the land. Processing & printing the images on his bus, he offered his subjects free prints in exchange for taking their photos. The book is designed in a unique format, which is an ode to the original Readers Digest AA Book of The Road. It’s full of images of wonderful characters interspersed with reportage from the areas Meadows visited, giving the reader an insight in to the diversity of life in England in the 1970’s.
— Russ O’Connell, Picture Editor, The Sunday Times Magazine
lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound by Keisha Scarville. Published by MACK.
lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound by Keisha Scarville is a hypnotic and sublime feast of diasporic visuality where past, present, and future sentiments dance and collide: a gorgeous artist book, full of visual pleasure and radical re-imaginings, imbued with myriad echoes of ancestral sentiments and poetic reverberations. Fluidly moving between interwoven spheres of exquisitely collaged assemblages of conceptual and archival imagery, the book reflects the artist’s hybrid artistic practice beautifully, and powerfully.
— Renée Mussai, Curator, Scholar, Writer, Editor
Her Own by Dragana Jurisic. Self-published.
Publisher’s statement: ”Her Own weaves together the life stories of three women: the artist’s aunt Gordana, her own and that of L’Inconnue de la Seine – three women, their fates and mind reflections, traumatic and resilience and survival instinct resonating. Alongside them, emerges right before our eyes what is most common still up to this day: the fictionalisation, victimisation and subsequent margninilisation & annihilation of women within the grand and minor historical narrative.”
—Marina Paulenka, Fotografiska
Dialect by Felipe Romero Beltrán. Published by Loose Joints, Marseille.
Dialect is a book following three years in the lives of nine young migrants. Coming from Morocco, they find themselves stuck in Seville, Spain, in the excruciating bureaucracy of underage custody, in the hope to gain legal status. The images tell their stories, and depict their lives in this suspended, harrowing state of waiting. The book is remarkable in its collaborative nature, with the author engaging in active observation of gestures and movement, exploring and witnessing how the body engages within liminal space — both physical and metaphorical. It is at the same time a powerful commentary on the real life meaning of being a migrant in Europe, and the effect that callous national policies inflict on the younger migrant population. A wonderful little gem.
— Elisa Medde, Independent Curator and Editor
Aim an Arrow at the Rock in the Ocean by Taro Karibe. Published by Troublemakers Publishing.
Taro Karibe boldly introduces glitches onto TV screens, photographs them, and subsequently adjusts the rotation and cropping to produce context-shifted images. The resulting images are fed into an AI system, which generates a machine-translated version of the images. The book explores the process of AI image recognition and how that understanding evolves over time. It truly encapsulates photographs that resonate uniquely within the contemporary environment that envelops us.
— Ihiro Hayami, Founder, T3 Photo Festival Tokyo
Father’s Video Tapes by Teng-Chi Yang (Manbo Key). Published by Locus Publishing Company (Taiwan).
I can imagine that it must have been unbearable for Teng-Chi Yang (Manbo Key) to spend his childhood questioning the meaning of his own existence in a region where old customs still exist. The discovery of his father’s videotape, and viewing it, freed him from the consciousness that clung to him, leading to a respect for his father who was often absent, and to his own freedom. The overflowing life that surrounds him is captured here. The various graphical images scattered throughout the book poignantly convey his celebration of himself, whether joyful or sad.
The book is a very candid account of his upbringing, his gender identity, and his sexual experiences, both in text and photographs, but I found myself flipping through the pages of the thick pink book, wondering if this book alone would be enough to sum it all up.
— Yumi Goto, Curator, Director, Reminders Photography Stronghold
Deborah Turbeville: Photocollage by Nathalie Herschdorfer. Published by Thames & Hudson
Deborah Turbeville: Hidden Under Layers by Maeva Dubrez. Published by Acteditions.
Two equally amazing books out this year both highlight the surreal and mysterious fashion photographs of Deborah Turbeville. As a photographer who first started paying attention to magazines and books in the late 80s, I was very much struck by her blurry, ethereal pictures — they seemed to be more about an expressionistic state of mind than that of a straight documentary photographer. It was if Julia Margaret Cameron (who technically had the means to take perfectly sharp pictures, but chose not to) was unleashed 100+ years later on the fashion world, mixed in with a beautiful dose of pictorialism and collage, turning it into something far more than simply poetic. Turbeville’s archive is part of the MUUS Collection and must be an incredible trove, to have yielded two gorgeous but very different books in the same year, edited by two talented curators through completely different lenses.
— Todd Hido, Photographer
Melt by Philip Zimmermann. Published by Spaceheater Editions.
Melt by American book artist Philip Zimmermann is a small, complex hybrid book that comes in a metal box. Its theme is climate change in its two paradoxical manifestations: rising sea levels and spreading droughts on land. It uses a variety of interwoven media, from AI-generated images of melting icebergs, video stills of ice cubes liquefying in a glass, to maps of parched landscapes, ChatGPT-generated texts, and poetry. A description accompanying the book provides detailed information about the production process and its parameters. In this sense, Melt is an example of a multimedia book that emancipates itself from the classic photobook and deals transparently and responsibly with the new challenges of AI.
— Andreas Müller-Pohle, Artist and Publisher, European Photography
Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective. Published by Presetl Verlag.
“While I am traveling, I take photographs that are guided by my feelings and physical obsessions or fetishes…”
Daido Moriyama 1973Published to accompany the traveling exhibition, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective, this book captures all of the intensity and dark energy of six decades of his work. This is an instance where the design of the book strongly conveys the artist’s vision, from the graphic presentation of the cover and end papers, to the images that are not restricted by date or traditional orientation. We are on a kinetic visual journey with the artist as we move through the book, switching from photographs that are presented horizontally, and then vertically, a kaleidoscopic vision of Moriyama’s world. Nothing is what we expect it to be in the raw and grainy images of this influential photographer.
— Deborah Klochko, Museum of Photographic Arts, Director Emeritus. Visual Literacy, Innovative New Concepts. Special Projects Consultant
Meat, Fish & Aubergine Caviar by Alex Blanco. Published by Overlapse.
Alex Blanco left home at age 16 to escape from a complex domestic life with her parents. Years later she returned to the Ukrainian city of Odessa on the Black Sea to care for her father recovering from an illness and found a path to engage with her parents through the daily rituals of food preparation and communal dining.
Her intimate photographs made over six years introduce us to her parents with their uniquely individual personalities and how the kitchen table is the anchor of their existence. The portraits Alex made of her mother with vegetables and other ingredients are classical and collaborative, which along with her first-person text and the inclusion of her mother’s recipes lend a lighthearted glimpse into this challenging moment in time for the three of them. The use of color/black & white, as well as still-life and abstract images, amplify through sequencing the stress and occasional joy of being together again in a self-created utopian environment. The softbound cover wrap with flat spine is bound into the wire binding, referencing shared community cookbooks. Meat, Fish & Aubergine Caviar is yet another wonderfully satisfying and affordable book from Overlapse (London, UK).
— Mary Virginia Swanson, Author/Educator
Too Much But Not Enough by Antoine d’Agata and Yang Li. Published by Steidl.
What started as a fashion photography project allowed fashion designer Yang Li, photographer Antoine d’Agata and designer Theseus Chan to crystalize their processes, encounters and photographs into a package of densely layered printed matter consisting of 23 LP albums covers and several booklets along with distinctive and compelling images by d’Agata.
The book slipcase is made of cardboard with distressed tape. The zine-like booklets and intimate texts inside help to convey the underground subcultures well, and they are visual treats in themselves, yet they do not obscure the intimate portraits. Behind these portraits are journeys across China in which Yang Li and Antoine d’Agata approached over 300 women from different walks of life to capture their stories and images. Emerging from their lives, transcripts and images raise not unfamiliar themes of self-knowledge and beauty, love and disillusion, personal freedom and social constraints.
Too Much But Not Enough may not fall strictly within the category of “photobook” but it certainly has demonstrated that creative minds, distinct visual language and explorative processes can become beautiful collaborations, which gives the reader an authentic and highly charged experience via a printed publication.
— Gwen Lee, Co-Founder and Director at DECK Photography Art Centre
Being There by Omar Victor Diop & The Anonymous Project. Published by Textuel.
Being There is an extraordinary photobook that encapsulates everything we love about photography and the photobook. It is a compelling collaboration between the talented photographer Omar Victor Diop and the renowned Anonymous Project.
Diop’s powerful performance-style photographs and thought-provoking visuals and take center stage in this book. His keen eye for detail and composition captures the essence of human experiences, unveiling stories that are often overlooked for Black males.
What sets Being There apart is its ability to inject humor and irreverence into its exploration of these identities. Diop’s clever use of satire challenges societal norms and traditional ideals of class representation. It is provocative, humorous and irreverent to the perceived notion of middle class representation in mainstream media. Over the past few years Blackness represented in portraiture in painting and photography have dominated visual representation. With Being There, we observe new ways of engaging with this genre by reactivating much debated historical archives.
The collaboration with the Anonymous Project adds an additional layer of depth to the book. By incorporating their extensive archive of found photographs, the project offers a unique perspective on the evolution of middle-class culture throughout history. It builds a bridge between the past and the present, allowing us to reflect on how we have come to define ourselves and examine the changes that have occurred over time.
In Being There, Diop and the Anonymous Project present a photobook that is not only visually striking but also intellectually stimulating. It challenges the status quo and encourages us to rethink the boundaries of representation. If you are seeking a captivating and thought-provoking exploration of middle class identity, this book is an absolute must-read.
— Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF)
There have been a lot of interesting and worthy photography books this year, but when asked by Jim Casper to pick just one, the ONE that immediately jumped into my hands was Being There.
This book offers many layers of pleasure. At the core of it there is the face of the Zelig-like character played by Omar Victor Diop. For many of you this ‘Zelig’ may be an unfamiliar comparison; in 1983 Woody Allen made a film called ‘Zelig’ about an ordinary man who manages, through a chameleon-like personality, to insert himself into historic world events, this cinema trick was accomplished in an era before photoshop so the miracle of this film and edit was a real inspiration at the time.
Back to Being There. Lee Shulman and the Anonymous Project have collected a trove of 50’s and 60’s Kodachrome snapshots of the most banal of American lifestyle non-events. In all of them, white middle class Americans barbecue, golf, swim, fish, ski, celebrate, go on holiday trips, attend family events, business meetings, shovel snow, and do so many other mundane activities that one wonders why they even made these photographs of such dull events in the first place. One of the subtle details that enrich these photos is that in many images the person who made the shot has left their chair empty, and sometimes a camera bag sits on the table, or nearby.
Jump forward into the 21st century where social issues that have long been avoided have become the cri de coeur of the moment, and Schulman, with the help of the remarkable Diop, and Photoshop, and a team of techs and stylists, has created a brilliant, funny, and devilishly pointed satire on life then and now. Diop, a photographer of witty self portraits, shows a command and flexibility of character without which this book could not have maintained its high purpose and its long reach from 75 years ago into this very moment.
Within just a few pages, Diop, by slipping into the empty chair, or vacant place in the image, accomplishes the basic elements of social integration which should have been ‘normal life’ in America for far longer than these Kodachromes describe. His genius of expression, and his graceful physicality become elemental normality, while at the same time point out the underlying racism — unacknowledged by the participants — built into the very fabric of American life.
This book works its wonders on visual, social, historic, technical, and often on purely photographic levels on every page, and, what’s more, it continues to deliver its pleasures on repeated readings, and it’s on these returns to the book that ever more of its deepest substance is revealed, and it’s there that we confront our own ways of being, our own hidden feelings, and the taint of our own prejudices.
This is the best book of the year.
— Joel Meyerowitz, Photographer
Monument by Trent Parke. Published by Stanley/Barker.
For more than two decades, Trent Parke has been pushing at the physical boundaries of street photography, the book format and image-making itself to explore existential themes of isolation, otherness and dystopia.
In Monument his experiments with exposure, darkroom chemistry and book craft (to name just a few) reach their apogee, resulting in a work of daring abstract dimension that seems to observe human life from an extraterrestrial viewpoint.
Already into its third printing, Monument is a breath-taking book in which the form doesn’t so much overwhelm its subject as embody it.
— Simon Bainbridge, Writer and Editor
Monument is Trent Parke’s brilliant reinterpretation of several bodies of work he has made over the last two decades. Utterly devoid of words or language (with the exception of the unaffixed metal title plate), the book nevertheless reads as a dark poem to the human condition within the larger cosmos. From the opening pages we are drawn into the book by degrees, telescoping down through stars and swarming moths and car headlights until we reach street level. Parke’s street photography lies at the heart of the book, and it is the combination of the photographer’s singular vision and Sydney’s searing light that give this remarkable book its poetic pulse and meter.
— Melissa O’Shaughnessy, Photographer
Fashion by Paul Kooiker. Published by Art Paper Editions.
I am a big fan of Kooiker. I suspect we look up to and subconsciously refer to similar iconic pictures from the past. He is a remarkable maker of images. So prolific that all the works in this book were made in just two or three years. Remarkable when you see the breadth of content, from still life to nudes to studio work to the outdoors. And yet I always know a Kookier work as if a thread runs from photograph to photograph, stitching them all together.
The term Fashion brings to my mind the ever-shifting trends in today’s fast-paced culture. Yet Kooiker’s work is classic and feels timeless in a Man Ray meets Sander who meets the Russian constructivists sort of way.
Kooiker handles nudes and semi nudes so well. In my opinion, photographs of nudes can be problematic pictures to make. I really enjoy Brandt and Friedlander’s nudes. They navigate the aspects of this genre and don’t remind us of myriad works that slide down towards porn. I’d add Kooiker’s work to this elevated class of works that feels so original and not at all exploiting or leering.
Check it out and see if you agree with me.
— Nadav Kander, Imperial Works
Duologues by Nina Welch Kling. Published by Kehrer.
As I delve into the pages of Nina Welch Kling’s Duologues, I find myself captivated by her extraordinary approach to street photography. Not everyone sees the quirky details, revelatory juxtapositions, and subtle wit of street life as Nina does. Her work, which reminds me of the legendary Helen Levitt, is deceptively simple yet profoundly deep, drawing me into the magic of the everyday world. I am particularly fascinated by how she uses diptychs to tell stories, making the ordinary seem extraordinary. These images, dancing with rhythm and rhyme, echo the vibrant life on the streets, full of quirky details and revelatory juxtapositions. Nina brilliantly weaves together tones, textures, and patterns, revealing the joy, beauty, humor, and love in what might otherwise be mundane moments. Through her lens, I am learning to see the world differently, finding poetry in the prosaic and appreciating the subtle interplay of life unfolding around me.
— Gulnara Lyabib Samoilova, Photographer, Author, and Founder of Women Street Photographers
