2018 Favorite Photobooks — Day 6
This year we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of our renowned listing of the year's best photobooks. To mark this milestone, we've decided to do something a bit different. We've asked 88 internationally recognized luminaries from the photobook world to choose their favorite photobook of the year. Their favorite book could be unforgettable for any number of reasons but the chosen books affected our selectors on a very personal level. These books led each of our contributors to conclude, "If there's one book not to miss this year, it would be this!"
Each day for the following two weeks we will publish additional titles selected by our distinguished group of photobook lovers. Subscribe to PhotoBookDaily to get our email announcements in advance!
Check back daily to see a new group of favorite books!
Ed Templeton's Favorite
Photographs by Tish Murtha
"I love picking up a book with a name I’ve never heard of and being blown away. Youth Unemployment was it this year, especially after hearing it was a posthumous book shepherded into being by Tish Murtha’s daughter."
Douglas Stockdale's Favorite
Photographs by Laia Abril
"Abril and Pez have not shied from this thorny inter-continental and multilayered cultural, political and religious land-mine like the subject of Abortion. They provide ample evidence of how over the years many women have suffered extensively due to their reproductive capabilities."
Joshua McFadden's Favorite
Photographs by Zanele Muholi
"In this beautiful monograph, Muholi uses the self-portrait a vehicle for social change while demonstrating a vulnerability that is inspiring. Adorned with found objects, Muholi presents strong themes of freedom from bondage, inequality, and injustice. This book is a must-have, and you should buy it immediately."
Renate Aller's Favorite
Photographs and text by Jungjin Lee
"Jungjin Lee’s publication Desert offers our eyes a tactile experience. She gives us permission to trace the surface texture in an intimate close up and to get lost in a space devoid of structure and time. The book perfectly translates the experience of viewing her large-scale installations on handmade paper"
S. Billie Mandle's Favorite
Photographs by Jo Ann Walters
"Looking through Wood River Blue Pool is slightly painful. Some of the portraits feel too intimate — as if Jo Ann Walters had captured neighbors or cousins, maybe myself. Laura Wexler’s essay and Emma Kemp’s companion book give a powerful context: voicing the moral pain held in and around the pictures and our lives."
Emily Sheffer's Favorite
Photographs by Yorgos Yatromanolakis
"The allegorical imagery feels like a stumbling fever dream through a familiar place. The size and length of the book is just right, as are the carefully chosen details on the hardcover design. It’s rare that I find a book that feels so complete within itself — as if it needs to live only in this form."