Top 25 photobooks
An arbituary selection of personal favourites and long-established classics. I’m no expert so if there’s any glaring omissions, so be it. When it comes to music, I’m all for a Greatest Hits, and likewise with photography books, I mostly only need a Best Of compilation of a photographer’s best work, though I understand many photographers painstakingly produce a photobook in the same way an author writes a novel. i.e. with a beginning, middle and end. That’s fine too. With digital photography and self-publishing, there are now millions of photobooks out there, who knows how many future classics in the making?
Martin Parr and Gerry Badger produced a three-volume series of the format called The Photobook: A History. Parr produced over 100 photobooks of his own work, and was a champion of the format, as are other photographers on this list, including Alec Soth and Stephen Gill.
Let’s be Frank… the best photobook ever.
1. The Americans by Robert Frank (1958)
2. William Eggleston’s Guide by William Eggleston (1976)
3. The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1952)
4. Exiles by Josef Koudelka (1988)
5. Uncommon Places by Stephen Shore (1982)
6. The Last Resort by Martin Parr (1986)
7. Tulsa by Larry Clark (1971)
8. End of the Game by Peter Beard (1965)
9. Shadow and Light by Bill Brandt (2013)
10. Going East by Max Pam (1992)
11. The Journey is the Destination by Dan Eldon (1997)
12. Cardiff After Dark by Maciej Dakowicz (2012)
13. Infra by Richard Mosse (2012)
14. Ray’s a Laugh by Richard Billingham (1996)
15. Sleeping by the Mississippi by Alec Soth (2004)
16. The Pillar by Stephen Gill (2019)
17. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agree (1941)
18. The Solitude of Ravens by Masahisa Fukase (1986)
19. I Want to Take Picture by Bill Burke (1987)
20. Every Building on the Sunset Strip by Ed Rushca (1966)
21. Morocco by Harry Gruyaert (1990)
22. Self. Life. Death by Araki (2005)
23. Our Forbidden Land by Fay Godwin (1990)
24. The Iconic Photographs by Steve McCurry (2011)
25. Sleeping with Ghosts by Don McCullin (1994)
Previously on Barnflakes
Top ten photography books I want but can’t afford
Top ten photographers
Book Cover: Robert Frank’s Les Americains