Who doesn’t love a good photo book? To flick through the pages, be enlightened, educated, distracted and absorbed into another world through another’s eyes? Totally fantastic!
We’re here to share our Photobook Favourites – a selection of our favourite photography books recommended by the Shutter Hub community, an archive of titles we’ve enjoyed, and a reference point for you to explore.
Las Pelilargas, Irina Werning, GOST
For 18 years photographer Irina Werning travelled across Latin America to seek out those with long hair to uncover and understand its cultural significance. Her book Las Pelilargas (the long-haired ones) brings together this body of work in an exploration and celebration of identity and how the sacred is entwined in human hair.
19.5 x 25cm, 128 pages, 88 images / Hardcover
Find out more about Las Pelilargas here.
Before the time comes, Sibylle Fendt, Kehrer Verlag
In her book Before the time comes, Sibylle Fendt focuses on people who spend the last phase of their lives at home with family and friends. The intimate photographs show how familiar surroundings can be an important anchor during the time of farewell, providing security and support despite the pain. Through her photographs, supplemented by quotes from the people portrayed, she makes it clear that this time also has a special value. Sibylle Fendt finds a touching and appreciative visual language for the difficult subject of dying.
23.5 x 29.5 cm, 140 pages, 77 images / Cloth hardcover
Find out more about Before the time comes here.
Ruckbau, Hans Schlimbach, Self-Published
Rückbau is about the dismantling of a nuclear power plant in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was supposed to be the largest nuclear power plant in the GDR, and if it had been completed, it would have been one of the largest in reunified Germany. The village of Niedergörne was razed to the ground for the construction, the residents were relocated. At times, up to 10,000 people worked on the 700-hectare site. The remaining reactor block, a huge concrete block, has been dismantled piece by piece for over 30 years.
Find out more about Rückbau here.
Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Henry John Elwes and Dr Augustine Henry, RRB Photobooks
Over 120 years ago Henry John Elwes and Dr Augustine Henry embarked on an epic project to create a comprehensive catalogue of British and Irish Trees. This monumental work was published in a series of seven volumes, containing 2022 pages, 412 main photographs and recorded over 500 species of tree. This new book is first to focus on the previously overlooked role of photography in the original, including 64 litho-printed reproductions, contextualised with an essay by photographic historian and writer, Michael Pritchard.
128 pages, 64 images / Softcover
Find out more about Trees of Great Britain and Ireland here.
It is thought that up to a million starlings roost at the Avalon Marshes at Ham Wall. Some of the birds inhabit the marshes year-round, and others migrate from colder countries in continental Europe as northern winter descends and contribute to this staggering number of birds. During the day they travel up to 20 miles to feed and return in the afternoon, an hour or so before sunset. Southam’s photographs capture the spectacle of the starling flocks populating the sky before flying down to roost for the night, leaving the skies empty once more.
Find out more about Starlings here.
An Extremely Un-get-atable Place, Craig Easton, GOST
An Extremely Un-get-atable Place is a lyrical reimagining of the time that writer George Orwell lived at Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the Isle of Jura in Scotland. It was here that Orwell wrote his landmark book Nineteen Eighty-Four—a dire warning of the dangers of totalitarianism and political despotism. Photographer Craig Easton was invited to stay at Barnhill—largely unchanged since Orwell’s time—where he made a series of landscape and still life images. In Easton’s new book, these photographs are presented alongside extracts from Orwell’s letters and diaries written on the island.
27 x 33cm, 100 pages, 58 images / Hardcover
Find out more about An Extremely Un-get-atable Place here.
Enoura Observatory: Land of Distant Memories, Hiroshi Sugimoto, MW Editions
Since the early 2010s, Hiroshi Sugimoto has been constructing the Enoura Observatory in Odawara, Japan, which brings together ancient and contemporary Japanese traditions in one seemingly timeless art and architectural complex. Enoura Observatory: Land of Distant Memories provides an account of this stunning multidisciplinary project.
20 x 26.5cm, 224 pages, 125 images / Hardcover
Find out more about Enoura Observatory: Land of Distant Memories here.
THE COLOUR LIBRARY: BLUE, Shutter Hub Editions
The Colour Library is a curated series of photo books exploring the emotional, symbolic, and visual power of colour. Each edition is a visual exploration and celebration of one colour, showcasing its presence, symbolism, and emotional range across different photographic styles and perspectives.
The first edition is dedicated to blue. A colour of depth and distance, blue is a language. Vast as the sky and as still as water. Blue can evoke calm, melancholy, serenity and sorrow.
From literal to abstract interpretations, and alternative processes, within the pages of BLUE photographers delve deep and investigate the colour blue.
14.8 x 21cm, 116 pages, 100 colour photographs / Softcover.
Find out more and buy THE COLOUR LIBRARY: BLUE here.
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