Top Ten Photo Books — No Particular Order – Daniel Agee, Good Fight Publishing
What color is the air you breathe?
Alex Christopher Williams
Self-published
BPS
What color is the air you breathe? follows the travels of photographer Alex Christopher Williams as he explores America’s history of violence throughout the American South. Guided by notable photographs made in the South, Williams’ pictures revisit sites of historical significance to the slave trade, the confederacy, urban renewal projects, and the civil rights movements from the 20th and 21st centuries.
–
Mike
Elijah Howe
TIS Books
Through a mix of family archive photos and Elijah Howe’s own images, MIKE is a son’s reflection on the life of his father, seen through the eyes of those closest to him. From his youth as the lead singer of a heavy metal band to his quieter, middle-aged years as a husband and father, the photographs build a layered portrait of Mike Howe’s identity. Yet, after his death, the narrative unravels into chaos and emptiness, conveying the profound and unsettling impact of loss. MIKE is a poignant look at how we remember and carry those who have passed, revealing how absence can be as powerful as presence.
—
Sunshine Terrace
Emily Shur
Turning her lens towards her own neighborhood, perched between the expanses of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, Emily Shur adopts the figure of the walking photographer, focusing her gaze on this familiar place in which she precisely frames surfaces, colors and light in a true compositional pleasure, where forms respond to each other with a discreet humor. Sunshine Terrace is a portrait of a place seen through a slightly slanted, slightly diverted gaze, delighting in the details and oddities encountered during a navigation giving prominence to serendipity.
North North South
Ayda Gragossian
Gost
Los Angeles is a constantly shifting, fragmented city with a landscape that is both navigated and determined by the car. To create the photographs in her forthcoming book—North North South— the Iranian American artist Ayda Gragossian wandered through different areas of the city. She documented the spaces, objects, and textures that are often overlooked when life is in constant motion.
Over a period of four years, Gragossian amassed a collection of images of store windows, parking lots, and suburban houses that function as motifs. Her black and white photographs are devoid of people, an aesthetic choice that emphasises the city’s contradictory characteristics. The visual narrative in North North South departs from that of the glamorous Los Angeles popularised by the entertainment industry. Instead, Gragossian’s photographs capture a deeply personal view of a working-class city where different realities coexist in close proximity.
—
In-Passing
Lisa Sogini
Libraryman
Two new identities: Mother and Motherless. The collision of birth and death marks the inception of what has become a long-running commentary, nearly a decade in the making.
In-Passing began in 2015, the year Lisa Sorgini (b. 1980, Australian) became a mother to her first child, shortly followed by the loss of her mother to illness.
Initially, the creation of images served as both a determined witness to a new reality and a therapeutic outlet for her grief and awe. The images are saturated with the profound metamorphosis that accompanies motherhood, representing the corporeal and psychological shifts that redefine the self. Reminiscent of the adolescent journey, this evolution of identity navigates a liminal space where the maternal self simultaneously vanishes and is reborn—a quiet reinvention at the threshold of both loss and renewal.
Another Patch of Sky
Brian Chorski
Guest Editions
The first photobook from US artist Brian Chorski explores the American West and it’s role in providing a place to find freedom. Over the course of several summers, Another Patch of Sky moves dream-like through open and undefined spaces, in search of nothing but escape. Without asking for explanation or reason, the only question is whether the land can provide the same. To offer solice without judgement. Absorb without reflection. Exist as a pure object of our desire and desperate need to be somewhere else.
—
Billions Served
Richard Renaldi
Deadbeat
In Billions Served, Richard Renaldi once again offers his large format portraiture as an invitation to slow down and see familiar sights in new light. The title, taken directly from the boastful catchphrase “Billions and billions served”, at once acknowledges the economics of American fast food while simultaneously signaling that those billions of burgers have been served both to and by billions of people. Contrary to the nature of fast food environs where subtle cues direct us through choreographed movements toward ever swifter commerce & consumption, Renaldi invites the viewer to pause and actively participate in each moment. His black & white photos neutralize the riot of color otherwise drawing our eyes; color portraits place fellow patrons center stage, from out of the recesses where corporations would let them fade. The result is a new way of actively engaging these often frequented but seldom-considered scenes with a spotlight on humanity.
—
Traumstadt
Grace Dodds
I’m excited to share my latest zine TRAUMSTADT. Shot in just 2 weeks in the fall of 2022, this project was a different way of working for me. Led by intuition & curiosity, I wanted to see what I could find in a city I had never visited with an intentionally shortened runway for photographing.
A Surrender
Markus Naarttijärvi
Good Fight
The haunting stillness of Swedish winter serves as the inspiration and backdrop for Markus Naarttijärvi’s debut monograph A Surrender.
Shot over 1,000 consecutive days, Naarttijärvi navigates spaces stuck in a liminal twilight — somewhere between death and rebirth, where human industry dissolves into nature’s embrace. Each photograph is a step in a journey of appreciation between growth and decay, society and wilderness, resistance and surrender.
With patience and persistence, Naarttijärvi transforms collapse and new growth into a meditation on impermanence while reminding us that sometimes, the only way out is through.
—
The Weight of Ash
Ian Bates
Between 2014 and 2020, Ian Bates traveled tirelessly along the West Coast of the United States. For years, he has photographed there a charred land suffering from increasing scorching wildfires. But, far from any voyeuristic dramatization, scarce are the depictions of the roaring flames, or of the fire’s fury. Rather, standing at a respectful distance, Bates photographs in rich black and white tones what is at the margin, the traces, the aftermaths. The beauty and horror of the landscape, too, enshrouded in a grey cloak of ashes and plumes. “There is a moment after a wildfire burns but before humans return”, says Bates, “where the land and forests are both beautiful and terrifying.”