Great Little Photobooks Under $30

The Americans List compiled by Jason Eskenazi, Someone is No Monster by Jan von Holleben, Sydney Jonas Walk by Colin Snapp.

Here is another selection of Great Little Photobooks under $30 to add to your collection. The Americans List contains commentary from hundreds of photographers on the iconic work of Robert Frank as compiled by Jason Eskenazi, Someone is No Monster is a collection of photographic collages by Jan von Holleben and Sydney Jonas Walk contains photographic stills from the video installation work of Colin Snapp. All three books are vastly different in approach and all are perfect additions for both budding and established photobook collections alike. Click to read about more Great Little Photobooks under $30.

from The Americans List

The Americans List by Jason Eskenazi – $13

When he was a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during Robert Frank’s exhibition Looking In, Jason Eskenazi asked photographers who visited the exhibition about their favorite Frank photograph and compiled this book of responses. Remarkably, we do not see any of Frank’s photographs in The Americans List, but in reading the descriptions from the hundreds of photographers who contributed, a new light is shed on this iconic body of work. A perfect companion to Frank's The Americans, the book speaks to the vast and varied interpretations of a single photograph and our personal connection to it.

from Someone is No Monster

Someone is No Monster by Jan von Holleben – $10 (signed)
This soft-bound signed monograph contains 32 pages of Jan von Holleben’s humorous and accessible photographic collages. The artist layers drawings and objects on top of a single photograph of a model in their underwear against a white wall in what looks to be an apartment. He uses objects found in and around the home to create his photo collages – ink, paperclips, beaded necklaces, chewing gum, food, thread – and re-photographs them with each intervention, building his collage. As we flip through the pages, the original photograph becomes increasingly unrecognizable with this layering technique, while retaining its original form of a full-bodied human figure. The final photograph has been layered to the point of unknown origin.

from Sydney Jonas Walk

Sydney Jonas Walk by Colin Snapp – $16
Containing 44 pages of color photographs made by projecting video stills on walls and re-photographing them, Sydney Jonas Walk is a wonderfully mysterious collection of images from Colin Snapp. The objects Snapp photographs become sculptural and formal -- a boat, a hand, a video camera, a ferris wheel -- and removed from their original context, the viewer has a hard time placing the objects as heavy pixelation causes them to become virtually unrecognizable. The many layers of digital reproduction create a unique color palette that brings the disparate images together. I love this book for its use of light, form and color, and because, despite the ubiquity of the objects photographed, sometimes I have no idea what I'm looking at. -- Erin Azouz