Photography is a portal, and photography books can offer a closer look at subjects we often overlook – a lens onto a world unseen, a tool to probe for the truth of our times, or irresistible visual fodder for your coffee table.
Whatever you’re after: a collectable object, an art gift, or an education, we have you covered, from cover to cover. Alongside the best art books, these are the most intriguing, engaging and unexpected photography books on the market.
The best photography books 2023
American Polychronic, by Roe Ethridge
American photographer Roe Ethridge’s comprehensive monograph gathers more than 400 works, spanning from the late 1990s-2022. This collection offers a vibrant sequence of his postmodern visual language, bounded by two interlocking threads of photography; his commercial and editorial photographs, as well as images for exhibitions. Intertwined, these seamlessly provide us with a sequence of hybrid images that embody the breadth of contemporary American society, with a photography approach that spans everyday documentary, fine art, fashion imagery, advertising and personal projects.
Walk To The Moon, by Suffo Moncloa
Shadow Octopus, 2012 Paris, Suffo Moncloa
When the pandemic put a pause on the creation of most new work, Suffo Moncloa began reflecting on his archive that ultimately formed ‘Walk To The Moon’. For Moncloa, the book ‘depicts a wild dream that consists of figures and symbols, signalling an apocalyptic world. What is left from waking up from a dream are hardly narratives, even the most memorable ones, but sharp details of a moment, a feeling that lingers.’ This notion of parallels between dreams and photography is explored in a thoughtful introduction by David Campany. The expressive images that follow are recognisably Moncloa’s: featuring animals, the moon, the sea, cities, disco balls and factories. Moncloa explains: ‘We are all just flickering specks in the history of the earth. Why not be daring? Dream a wild a dream. Nevertheless, it ends in peace, a hopeful wish from me, a rebirth like a lotus flower growing in muddy water.’
Plastic Bags, by Alessandro Furchino Capria
From Plastic Bags by Alessandro Furchino Capria, published with Continente Editions
In a plea to depict humanity’s anthropogenic transformation of the cosmos, Alessandro Furchino Capria’s ‘Plastic Bag’ uses plastic bags to embody the human form. Each picture evokes emptiness as we are invited to see a narrative in which the participant is replaced by the plastic bag, akin to ‘a crime scene in which all that remains is the evidence’. His uniquely striking portrayal of the human form assigns these subjects with a peculiar attitude, allowing his work to be permeated with thoughts of humanity and its relationship with material culture. ‘Plastic Bags’ highlights Furchino Capria’s evident skill in balancing tasteful compositions and sophisticated concepts.
Marion, by Christopher Anderson
From Marion by Christopher Anderson, published with Stanley/Barker
Created as an ode and love letter to his wife, Christopher Anderson’s book Marion is an endearing attempt to stop time. Originating as a personal collection, the organic nature of his photography is contained in his feeling of necessity; ‘I couldn’t NOT do it’, he says. Compelled to document the beautiful depth of his partnership, Anderson’s feelings of affection lie between his depictions of raw routine, displaying the eponymous subject of his book in the light of candid moments. His work chronicles intimate displays of memories and love, an innate and earnest proof of the passing of time.
Diachronicles, by Giulia Parlato
Falcon, from Diachronicles, published with Witty Books
Giulia Parlato’s Diachronicles investigates the dialogue between history and fiction as she explores the role of museums in shaping our understanding of historical narratives. In blurring the boundaries of authenticity, her images create a new version of history using fabricated artefacts and dioramas and placing them on a metaphorical background of historical evidence. These staged photos mimic archaeological legitimacy through their archival qualities, initially destabilising through her historical reconstructions. Shot in black and white, her images seperate from time as she reinforces the fallibility of museography.
Praberians, by Thomas Rousset
Image from Praberians by Thomas Rousset
Thomas Rousset examines the ritualistic aspects of rural life in his fantastical study of his childhood agricultural village, Parabert, which lies on the French and Swiss border. Published by Loose Joints, this nostalgic culmination of 12 years of work sees Rousset document the local Praberians and the striking landscapes they inhabit. Through this creative collaboration with his fellow inhabitants, Rousset indulges in the importance of united communities and the symbolic aspects of everyday life. Comic constructions, naturalistic portraits, rural eccentricities and heightened moments of absurdity amount to a depiction of a quasi-hallucinatory world; one of an effectively under-described society.
The best photography books 2022
Bedfellow, by Caroline Tompkins
Leech, 2022, Image from Bedfellow, published by Palm Studios and designed by Jamie Allan Shaw
There is a cloudy divide between fear and desire; a crossing between the personal and political, the pleasurable and painful. In Caroline Tompkin’s book Bedfellow,’ which had its Paris debut at Polycopies earlier this year, she shares these contradictory truths with us through images that pulse with attraction and apprehension. While a leach feeds on a bare male torso, Caroline Tompkins kisses a man, a caravan implodes in flames, a nudist returns our gaze, and then the sun sets. As talented a writer as she is a photographer, the book begins with a sharp essay, creating a charged context for Tompkins’ imagery.
The Four Pillars, by Eli Durst
Spread from The Four Pillars, by Eli Durst
Staging perturbing yet familiar scenes, Eli Durst’s The Four Pillars delves into American aspirations of happiness, self-improvement and individuality. Over several years, Durst built a relationship with a faith-based self-help group, formed of middle-class suburbanites who despite their relative comfort were seeking meaning amidst unending pressures for success. This dynamic seeded Durst’s unnerving reconstruction of family portraits, team bonding exercises, pregnancy groups, and amateur theatre. As a series of images in monochromatic dialogue with one another, a tense yet comic atmosphere builds in reflection of a society’s values.
Joke, by Talia Chetrit
Talia Chetrit, ‘Untitled (Family #1), 2021.’, from JOKE (MACK, 2022)
Working like a composer, Artist Talia Chetrit draws upon a breadth of visual languages and characters for Joke, her latest book, published with MACK. Bringing together family photos, street photography, still lifes, the artist’s teenage archive, and expressive self-portraits; Chetrit inverts and oscillates between reality and performance, tradition and controversy. There’s carnage and carnality in these contrasts, as her partner is depicted in high-end fetishwear while feeding their son, and a nude Chetrit photographs herself in transparent trousers. These form a controversial chorus, amidst verses of sullen teenage portraits and designer shoes in domestic still lives.
Body Double, by Thomas Abdorf
Thomas Alborf skews the reality of the physical world by disrupting our expectations of space and light - ‘Nothing here is what it seems to be - clouds can be petrified, water can become dust,’ he says. In Body Double, published with Same Paper, Albdorf connects his recognisable process to the constructed magic of Los Angeles and its film industry. Just as that world is all a mirage, Alborf’s images are never what they appear to be; each object is doesn’t quite feel right, tet the allure of cinematic entertainment is there, keeping his audience enthralled.
Flechazo, by Pia Riverola
Flechazo, by Pia Riverola
Translating as love at first sight Flechazo is photographer Pia Riverola’s ode to the culture, people and spirit of Mexico. Riverola explains ‘Mexico became my motherland instantly, my guide and my inspiration. Its people and nature took care of me in a defining moment in my life where it nourished me to become my own self - both personally and professionally. I felt part of it from the first moment I arrived, but it also challenged me to fight passionately for myself and my beliefs, which marked a path of growth for me in every aspect of life. Flechazo is my tribute.’ To view Riverola’s work is to be absorbed within a luscious palate filled with touching moments, fittingly, a poetic intermezzo by her partner and father to their firstborn John Reagan is included. Flechazo also marks a foray into publishing for Homecoming Gallery.
Chaos, by Valeria Herklotz
Chaos by Valeria Herklotz, with Oui Non Editions
We’re always interested in those who push the envelope in how photography can be presented, ‘Chaos’ by German photographer Valeria Herklotz is a dynamic example. Displayed in a series of five leporellos, images of young women in rapturous fervour as they dance. Since we can’t hear the beat inspiring their movements, a curious contradictory space opens up in which we are intimate voyeurs of these liberating scenes yet have no context to the rhythm they’re following.
Title: Zora J Murff: True Colors (or, Affirmations in a Crisis)
From True Colors (or, Affirmations in a Crisis) (Aperture, 2021). © Zora J Murff, courtesy the artist and Webber Gallery, London
With the autobiographical monograph True Colors (or, Affirmations in a Crisis), artist and educator Zora J Murff produces a nuanced commentary on race, power, privilege and violence. Described as ‘part manual, part autobiography, and part visual remix’, Murff grapples personally and politically with America’s violent past and present. Photography’s divisive role is acknowledged as Murff merges the role of archiver and participant. With a background in psychology and social work, Murff identifies within his practice ‘the duality of Black patriotism and the challenges of finding belonging in places not made for me—of creating an affirmation in a moment of crisis as I learn to remake myself in my own image.’
The Model Family, by Tealia Ellis Ritter
© Tealia Ellis Ritter 2021 courtesy Loose Joints
In The Model Family, Tealia Ellis Ritter pulls together a visual journey through raw love and loss. The book induces a flinching fascination in the viewer, leaving them unable to ignore their own familial past and present. Published by Loose Joints, the accompanying text by renowned writer Lisa Taddeo builds on the pushing and pulling of relationships that Ellis Ritter so adeptly captures. Fittingly, the two are family friends. Sleeping, bathing, laughing, kissing, hunting, crying, loving and dying; these acts are collected into something very different than a family album. Instead, this is both a painful and joyful ode to those closest to us.
A Pound of Pictures by Alec Soth
Spread from A Pound of Pictures, by Alec Soth, published by MACK January 2022
Everything from Buddhist statues and birdwatchers to sun-seekers and busts of Abe Lincoln appears in Alec Soth’s A Pound of Pictures; the acclaimed artist’s latest book published by Mack. Described as a stream-of-consciousness, the collected works take us on a journey through the desire to record and collect. ‘If the pictures in this book are about anything other than their shimmering surfaces,’ Soth writes in the afterword, ‘they are about the process of their own making. They are about going into the ecstatically specific world and creating a connection between the ephemeral (light, time) and the physical (eyeballs, film).’ Coinciding the publication are solo exhibitions at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis, and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.
Promise Land by Gregory Eddi Jones
Spread from Promise Land by Gregory Eddi Jones, published by SPBH
Taking a cue from T.S. Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land, Gregory Eddi Jones has formed an articulate photographic critique of the medium itself. For Jones, our current commonplace images are hollow illusions of meaning; picking up where Elliot’s poem left off a hundred years earlier, the artist imagines another life for photography in which it’s untethered from its historic badge of truth-telling. The title Promise Land is a testament to this projected ideal. Through physical and digital manipulations, Jones’ boundaryless abstractions form a cacophony of potential new interpretations in our ‘post-truth’ world.
Foto/Industria 2021: Food
Feedlots, Black Diamond Feeders, Herington Air Base, Kansas, 2013 © Mishka Henner. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Bianconi, Milano
Merging photography book and cookbook, Foto-Industria 2021’s biennial was accompanied by a rather unusual publication titled FOOD, created by chef and writer Tommaso Melilli. ‘The ways in which food is produced, distributed, sold, bought and consumed are constantly changing, yet they always encapsulate certain distinctive features of any era, historical period, or cultural and social milieu. Like photography, food is a language that incorporates and disseminates messages’. The Biennial’s artistic director and curator Francesco Zanot explains. Featuring work from the likes of Herbert List, Takashi Homma, Lorenzo Vitturi and more, this is a treat for both the eyes and palate.
A Spell Too Far by David Brandon Geeting and Lina
A Spell Too Far, by David Brandon Geeting and Lina Sun Park. Published by Same Paper
A Spell Too Far is the magical meeting of the minds of David Brandon Geeting and Lina Sun Park. Using some banal and some surprising household items, the artist couple has created wondrous scenes that read like a peculiar dream. A lilac toilet paper sculpture, a flowery maze of leg hair, a table setting of fruit and vegetable furniture come together to form a fantasy. Geeting, Sun Park, and their cat, all feature in the photography book too, with the same playful humour as characters are invented. Instructions with pink origami paper to make flowers are also included, allowing the reader to join Geeting and Sun Park in their joyful creations.
Title: Périphérique by Mohamed Bourouissa Publisher: Loose Joints Price: £40 Availability: out now
© Mohamed Bourouissa 2021. Courtesy Loose Joints
In Périphérique, Deutsche Börse award-winner Mohamed Bourouissa takes on visual codes of historic paintings with staged scenes of high drama in Paris’s banlieues; giving presence in history to its often stereotyped inhabitants. The acclaimed work was created amid great unrest in the banlieues with riots against France’s social and economic inequalities. Complex scenes run counter to the reductive representations Bourouissa is responding to in mainstream culture. Published with Loose Joints, the photography book includes unseen preparatory photographs evidencing the collaborative process between the Algerian-French artist with his friends and acquaintances in creating this profound look at inequality and representation.
Title: Venus & Mercury, by Viviane Sassen Publisher: Aperture Price: $150 Availability: out now
Product image/photograph of Viviane Sassen: Venus & Mercury (Aperture, 2021)
Given free reign over France’s Palace of Versailles, Viviane Sassen created Venus & Mercury, a limited-edition art book published with Aperture. For Sassen, the palace’s many marble statues were the inspiration for creating a multitude of surreal forms. Also explored were the ostentatious gardens, gilded baroque interiors, and even Marie Antoinette’s private correspondence. Together with poems from Marjolijn van Heemstra that allude to court societies of past eras, Sassen's contemporary visions of this past palace form a vivid art object. Sassen has even individually painted each box encasing the book, which was conceived and designed by renowned bookmaker Irma Boom.
Title: Deana Lawson Publisher: MACK Price: £35 Availability: out now
Image of the book ‘Deana Lawson,’ ed. By Peter Eleey and Eva Respini (MACK, 2021). Image details: Deana Lawson, Eternity, 2017 (left) and Nation, 2018 (right), courtesy the artist and MACK
Surveying fifteen years of Deana Lawson’s practice, the self-titled publication is an arresting deep-dive into Lawson’s broad photographic language. Collaboration with the subjects runs throughout; as their eyes lock with the viewer, the voyeuristic medium of photography suddenly looks both ways. Lawson’s family photographs and archives of vernacular images are included to reveal some of the influences behind the artists challenging exploration of representations of Black identities in African American and African diaspora communities. Cohesively, the scholarly publication is a powerful reflection on personal and social histories of Black life, love, sexuality, family, and spiritual beliefs.
Title: The Truth is in the Soil, by Ioanna Sakellaraki Publisher: GOST Price: £45 - £250 Availability: out now
Spread from The Truth is in the Soil, by Ioanna Sakellaraki
Since being featured as one of our 21 talents of 2021, Ioanna Sakellaraki has gone on to create a book of her acclaimed project The Truth is in the Soil. Following the death of her father five years ago, Sakellaraki returned to her homeland of Greece. As part of her grieving, she explored her mother’s grief about their country’s social and religious norms before expanding her research to traditional mourning rites. Sakellaraki explains how she was ‘inspired by the last communities of mourners on the Mani Peninsula of Greece as the doyennes of a dying tradition, the work incorporates a new kind of subjectivity, intimacy, and criticism, exploring mortuary rituals as a way of humans adapting to death.' Now, in collaboration with GOST Books, Sakellaraki has created a Kickstarter for the forthcoming book where supporters can get their hands on exclusive prints ahead of its publication next year.
kickstarter.com/thetruthisinthesoil
Title: Magnum Dogs Publisher: Thames & Hudson Price: £16.99 Availability: out now
Magnum Dogs, publshed by Thames & Hudson
Earlier this year, Magnum unleashed the ultimate dog-lover photography collection from its archive. From mutts oozing mischief to perfectly coiffed canines and pooches born to perform, this book brings together the wittiest, snappiest best of dog photography from Magnum’s top-tier roster including Eve Arnold and Martin Parr. Magnum Books is arranged into five thematic chapters: Streetwise, Best in Show, It’s a Dog Life, At the Beach and Behind the Scenes; If you weren’t already a dog person, you probably are now.
Title: Material, by Jet Swan Publisher: Loose Joints Price: £36 Availability: out now
© Jet Swan 2021. Courtesy Loose Joints
Yorkshire-born Jet Swan’s perspective appears suspended in an alternate dusky dimension, yet also reminiscent of a quintessentially British form of documentary making. For her debut book, Material, Swan drew from the last three years of her engagement with the public through pop-up studio spaces, such as an empty shop front inside a mall in Scarborough, and a repurposed community hall in Ramsgate. The result is a palpable aesthetic reflective of inner worlds; pubic hair spikes through flesh-coloured tights, a scab heals, pores glisten and a newborn stares into the camera. Published by Loose Joints, Material is accompanied by text by acclaimed poet Rachael Allen.
Writer: Sophie Gladstone
Title: Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now Publisher: Penguin Price: £50 Availability: out now
Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now: Seven Scenes from the Life of a House
Illustrated with photographs by Victoria Hely-Hutchinson and authored by Tate curator John-Paul Stonard, Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now: Seven Scenes from the Life of a House is deep-dive into one of England’s grandest country homes. While the house and grounds have a fascinating history as residence to the Cavendish family dynasty for sixteen generations, its works of art also capture the eye. From Nicolas Poussin's The Arcadian Shepherds and Antonio Canova's Endymion to great contemporary paintings by Lucian Freud and David Hockney. With a foreword by The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and structured in reverse chronological order, readers peel back layers of history as they turn pages. Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now is published by Penguin Books.
Writer: Sophie Gladstone
Title: Match Point: Tennis with Martin Parr, by Martin Parr Publisher: Phaidon Price: £39.95 Availability: out now
Match Point: Tennis with Martin Parr, by Martin Parr is published by Phaidon on 9 September, £39.95
This book is bound to make a racquet in the court of photography opinion. In Match Point: Tennis by Martin Parr, the British photographer demonstrates his ace command of social commentary. Parr was offered exclusive access to the most prestigious Grand Slam tennis tournaments, from the Australian and French Opens to Wimbledon and the US Open. There, he captured vivid shots – sometimes poignant, often hilarious – and offered an alternative view of life on and off the court. In this photography book, Parr is serving up his best cultural shots: witty jibes at consumerism, cultural identity, Britishness and its rain-soaked irony and human competitiveness. Advantage Parr.
Title: Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph, by Jason Fulford Publisher: Aperture Price: $24.95 Availability: out now
Above: Duane Michals, A Gursky Gherkin Is Just a Very Large Pickle, 2001; from Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph (Aperture, 2021). © Duane Michals
There are unwritten rules in photography: steer clear of clichés, exploitation, derivative ideas and easy metaphors. But how straightforward is this in practice, in a field as subjective as it is varied? With as much value in humour as education, Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph by Jason Fulford has cemented some of these ‘rules’ in print. This is not a strict guide, but a journey through ideas, stories, and anecdotes from many of the world’s most prominent photographers, alongside a list of more than a thousand ‘taboo’ subjects. From sunsets and roses to issues of colonialism and stereotypes, this is both a light-hearted look at what’s considered to be a ‘bad picture’ and a serious examination of what may or may not be ‘off-limits’ as societies reckon with the heavy social responsibilities of visual communication.
Title: Photography – A Feminist History, by Emma Lewis Publisher: Ilex Press Price: £40 Publication date: out now
Photography – A Feminist History by Emma Lewis is published by Ilex Press on 7 September 2021, £40.00
The history of photography is short, as is the list of female photographers who have received due recognition during its lifespan. Whether working in the studio or on the front line of war, women have contributed to every aspect of photography's evolution. In this authoritative, comprehensive and international book, author Emma Lewis delves into a photographic landscape of shifting gender rights and roles through the work of over 140 photographers, with ten thematic essays and extended profiles on 75 key practitioners. For some, gender plays a central role; for others, it's incidental. All have been affected by the power structures seen through – and behind – their camera lenses.
Title: Face Time – A History of the Photographic Portrait, by Phillip Prodger Publisher: Thames & Hudson Price: $45.00 Publication date: out now
Photographic portraiture has always served different purposes: from practical identification to storytelling. In Face Time, readers will come face-to-face with the history, cultural resonance and evolution of portrait photography. Exploring the many faces of portraiture – from fine art photography to cinema, news-hour mugshots to glossy fashion photographs – curator and photography historian Phillip Prodger captures more than 150 years of the medium through some of the most recognisable portraits ever made, and those that probably should be. Expect to see familiar faces including Queen Elizabeth II, Barack Obama, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, and deep-dives into the work of legendary photographers including nineteenth-century pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, modernist icon Lee Miller and contemporary groundbreaker Zanele Muholi.
Title: The British Isles, by Jamie Hawkesworth Publisher: MACK Price: £50 Publication date: out now
The British Isles (MACK, 2021). Courtesy of the artist and MACK
The British Isles chronicles 13 years of varied life across the United Kingdom, in an era when the country's identity is evolving to become increasingly complex. Through a diverse sequence of portraits and landscapes, Jamie Hawkesworth charts the characters, moods and moments that make up the rich tapestry of his home country, from schoolchildren and shopworkers, markets to estates, cities to construction sites. There is poignancy in the every day; there are questions left unanswered. The British Isles is a record of this eventful period in British history – one interwoven with outstanding natural beauty, austerity, referenda, celebration, and conflict.
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Fenix and Federica Sala Challenge Designers to double upCurator Federica Sala and innovative interiors material brand Fenix's Design Duo Double Feature project brings three design duos together to create dual-purpose furniture
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Interni Venosta is a new furniture brand by the Dimorestudio foundersLaunched at Milan Design Week 2024, Interni Venosta is Dimorestudio Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci's new brand, crafted by Tuscan manufacturer Fabbri Services and paying homage to 1970s Italian design
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Gucci’s ‘Design Ancora’ reimagines furniture classics in rich redGucci launches new editions of Italian design icons in an alluring deep red, showcased during Milan Design Week 2024
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‘Package Holiday 1968-1985’: a very British love affair in pictures‘Package Holiday’ recalls tans, table tennis and Technicolor in Trevor Clark’s wistful snaps of sun-seeking Brits
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‘Art Exposed’: Julian Spalding on everything that’s wrong with the art worldIn ‘Art Exposed’, Julian Spalding draws on his 40 years in the art world – as a museum director, curator, and critic – for his series of essays
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Marisol Mendez's ‘Madre’ unpicks the woven threads of Bolivian womanhoodFrom ancestry to protest, how Marisol Mendez’s 'Madre' is rewriting the narrative of Bolivian womanhood
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Edinburgh Art Festival 2023: from bog dancing to binge drinkingWhat to see at Edinburgh Art Festival 2023, championing women and queer artists, whether exploring Scottish bogland on film or casting hedonism in ceramic
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Last chance to see: Devon Turnbull’s ‘HiFi Listening Room Dream No. 1’ at Lisson Gallery, LondonDevon Turnbull/OJAS’ handmade sound system matches minimalist aesthetics with a profound audiophonic experience – he tells us more
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Hospital Rooms and Hauser & Wirth unite for a sensorial London exhibition and auctionHospital Rooms and Hauser & Wirth are working together to raise money for arts and mental health charities
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The best London art exhibitions to see nowYour guide to the best London art exhibitions, as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
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‘These Americans’: Will Vogt documents the USA’s rich at playWill Vogt’s photo book ‘These Americans’ is a deep dive into a world of privilege and excess, spanning 1969 to 1996
