In this gallery, we spotlight TIME LightBox’s curation of the best photobooks of 2016 as chosen by photographers and photography experts from around the world and, of course, by our own editors. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list. Instead, these are the personal choices made with the agonizing rule of selecting just one.
Creativity in photobooks continues to thrive, with many photographers in this selection experimenting with the boundaries of the printed page in a variety of ways. Some pushed forward with complex and nuanced sequencing. This is evident in books like Gregory Halpern’s ZZYZX, selected by photographer, writer and curator Aaron Schuman, who says that “harsh underlying motifs—of poverty, inequality, insanity, instability, destructive sprawl, natural disaster and more—quietly haunt what are on their surface overwhelmingly beautiful and seductive photographs, set and sequenced in the cleverest of ways. Such saturated color and golden light has rarely felt so sultry, psychedelic and sinister at the same time.”
Other photographers like Moises Saman, who collaborated with artist Daria Birang to create elaborate photographic collages, pushed their documentary work in new directions. TIME’s international photo editor Alice Gabriner feels that “the gravitas of Moises Saman’s Discordia is compounded by the touch, smell and imagination that flows through the pages of this labor of love. Saman covered the Arab Spring for mainstream media over four years creating a significant historical record, yet at the same time, he has crafted a body of work that is a deeply personal exploration. Set against an ancient landscape, echoes of the past reverberate today. Saman’s sequencing of images and use of repetition remind us of the tragic continuum of that tumultuous history.”
One of the most technologically innovative projects in this year’s selection is by artist Lucas Blalock, who in his book Making Memeries experimented with a digital app that extends the physical object beyond the printed pages. It was selected by Aperture’s editor and publisher Lesley Martin, who says: “an augmented reality component extends the border of the book, activating additional layers, movement, and surprise elements that float forth from the images.”
Once again the selection confirms that many of us still enjoy being transfixed or transported by an encounter with a singular vision. After all, the pleasure and quiet thrill that one gets sitting down with a good book—especially one that pushes the boundaries of the format—simply can’t be reproduced in mere ones and zeroes.
If This Is True: I'll Never Have to Leave Home Again by Robin de PuyPublished by LudionDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME LightBox Editor Olivier Laurent: "The American road trip is a photographic trope that's often abused by countless photographers, but Robin de Puy, through her truly personal approach, has produced an opus that sets her apart from the masses. Her American road trip spanned 8,000 miles on a motorcycle, but you'll rarely see pictures of stunning landscapes in her work. Instead, the Dutch photographer chose to focus on the people she met – sharing personal experiences that many photographes would shun. The result is a stunning study of today's America made all the more relevant after Donald Trump's election.”Danielle Staif for TIMENeighbors by Roe Ethridge Published by MACKDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Photo Intern Dilys Ng: “Fresh from his first solo museum show in North America, Neighbors is a defining monograph arranged so precisely in Roe Ethridge's breath: disarming, humorous and rid of -isms. Ethridge’s images of nostalgia and the fantastic, weaved by a synthetic thread, is reminiscent of that certain kind of wonder—like that of your first Google Image search experience.”Danielle Staif for TIMEDiscordia by Moises Saman and Collages by Daria BirangSelf PublishedDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME International Photo Editor Alice Gabriner: "The gravitas of Moises Saman’s Discordia, is compounded by the touch, smell and imagination that flows through the pages of this labor of love. Saman covered the Arab Spring for mainstream media over four years creating a significant historical record, yet at the same time, he has crafted a body of work that is a deeply personal exploration. Set against an ancient landscape, echoes of the past reverberate today. Saman’s sequencing of images and use of repetition remind us of the tragic continuum of that tumultuous history.”
Danielle Staif for TIMELittle North Road by Daniel TraubPublished by KehrerDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer Martin Parr: "On a bridge in Guangzhou, Daniel Traub encountered a Chinese photographer who specialized in taking portraits of Africans living in the city. Intrigued by this surreal combination, he photographed the surrounding streets and activity. In the book, he added folios of the portraits taken by Wu Yong Fu and Zeng Xian Fang, his collaborator. This, together with an interview with the photographers, contributes to one of the most surprising and engaging books of the year.”Danielle Staif for TIMERadicalia by Piero MartinelloSelf PublishedDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by writer and curator Erik Kessels: "Martinello made a stunning document of five groups of people living on the fringe of society. The photographs for this project are divided in five chapters and show fools, ravers, criminals, devouts and cloistered nuns. Each chapter is photographed in a different way, fitting to the subject. The book and accompanying exhibition are done in a very precise way that only can be done when someone has a total fascination and passion for these subcultures.”Danielle Staif for TIMEHighway Kind by Justine KurlandPublished by ApertureDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise Kira Pollack: ”Two stories weave parallel journeys through Justine Kurland's latest book Highway Kind. One of them is the story of the contemporary American Landscape and the other is about a the photographer finding her way as a new mother. The combination reimagines and reinvigorates the great tradition of the american road trip taken by so photographers many before her."Danielle Staif for TIMEbuzzing at the sill by Peter van AgtmaelPublished by KehrerDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Associate Photo Editor Josh Raab: "Van Agtmael's gaze is brutally honest. His painterly compositions capture moments that can't be fabricated, freezing slices of America few of us ever see. The text looks back at Peter's past—he was a history scholar and war photographer—as he contemplates how he got to this point. His images deeply contemplate the state of this country experienced freely through his open-ended adventures. By printing most of the images as double truck spreads with no captions until the end, he is allowing the viewer to contemplate with him.”Danielle Staif for TIMEHorse by Jitka HanzlováPublished by Koenig BooksDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer and publisher Mark Steinmetz: "Jitka Hanzlová's Horse is a beautifully designed and produced collection of (mostly) color photographs of horses. Her images, which are all vertical, demonstrate a keen, highly refined and idiosyncratic photographic intelligence combined with a child-like delight in observing the physical facts and physical nature of the horse.”Danielle Staif for TIMEStill, Looking, Works 1969-2016 by Billy Sullivan Published by Edition Patrick Frey/RAM Publications Danielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME LightBox writer Alexandra Genova: “Nostalgia for the hot and sticky New York scene of the 1970s and 80s is a familiar refrain. But with Billy Sullivan, it’s personal. He photographed it and painted it, but he lived it too. His retrospective, Still Looking: Works 1969 – 2016, invites you past the velvet rope, through an unguarded door, into a world of abandon. The book brings together nearly 50 years of photographs and artwork, which at their core, are a celebration of hedonism, tenderness and humanity itself.”Danielle Staif for TIMEInvisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem by Gordon ParksPublished by Steidl/The Gordon Parks Foundation, The Art Institute of ChicagoDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by LIFE Photo Editor Liz Ronk: "This book brings together the important collaboration between two artistic geniuses, Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison, in the 1950s, Harlem. In addition to the published LIFE story, pages are filled with unpublished images, contact sheets and hand written notes. Although the work was created more than 60 years ago, the relevance of social change has never rung so true.”
Danielle Staif for TIMEFuck It by Michele SibiloniPublished by Edition Patrick FreyDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Associate Photo Editor Ken Bachor: "These images were taken in Uganda at night from 2011 to 2014 and offer an interesting perspective of the region's diverse nightlife.”Danielle Staif for TIMEThe Meadow by Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne KelleyPublished by Radius BooksDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer Martin Parr: "This beautifully produced book, which examines a small plot of meadow, is a real gem. From misty autumnal landscapes to spring flowers, all seasons are celebrated. These images are supplemented with a fine text, assorted inventories and thorough appendixes of things like what birds were spotted with their dates. It is very re-assuring that one small plot can be so lovingly explored and it is the thoroughness of this that makes this book so compelling.”
Danielle Staif for TIMELibyan Sugar by Michael Christopher BrownPublished by Twin PalmsDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by National Geographic magazine Director of Photography Sarah Leen: "This is a raw book. It bleeds all over you, it takes you on a journey that begins in the heart and goes to hell and back. It's the story of a young man finding his way, losing it and finding it again. It's the voices of worried parents, a concerned girlfriend, colleagues who encourage, colleagues who die. It's loss and grief and it's the pictures, the pictures. And then as Leonard Cohen said, "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." This book, though full of shadow, shines, oh so bright.”Danielle Staif for TIMEMommie by Arlene GottfriedPublished by powerHouse
Danielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Deputy Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise Paul Moakley: “In forty years of color photographs, Arlene Gottfried documents three generations of women in her family finding the perfect balance of brutal honesty and touching humanity. The epic compilation of color images are presented in a delicate and beautifully designed book intended to feel like a long lost family album from older time in New York City.”Danielle Staif for TIMEMark Neville: Fancy Pictures by Mark NevillePublished by SteidlDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by writer and publisher Jeffrey Ladd: "The photographic books of the UK-based artist Mark Neville are not usually offered for public sale. Instead, he distributes thousands of free copies to the close-knit communities he collaborates with and photographs. Mark Neville: Fancy Pictures from Steidl is a much-needed mid-career survey into the UK’s most interesting contemporary social documentarian.”
Danielle Staif for TIMEThe Moon 1968-1972 by Photographs by NASAPublished by T. Adler BooksDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by writer and curator Marvin Heiferman: "Images of the moon--the largest and most widely watched object in our universe--fuel both fantasies and research. The Moon: 1968 – 1972 is an eerily placid and provocative little book, featuring stark but spectacular photos from NASA’s Apollo archives that juxtapose sight-seeing, science and the sublime.”Danielle Staif for TIME1% Privilege in a Time of Global Inequality by Myles LittlePublished by Hatje CantzDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME assistant managing editor of economics and business and author Rana Foroohar: ““Inequality isn’t just a number. It has real human impact. This book shows us the images – from the sky scrapping swimming pools of Singapore to the blur of a traders’ Bloomberg screen – that have become the backdrop to a new and disturbing economic era.”Danielle Staif for TIMEGot to Go by Rosalind Fox SolomonPublished by MACKDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer and publisher Alec Soth: "What does it say the most powerfully uncomfortable photobook of 2016 was authored by a wildly underrated 86-year-old woman? Rosalind Fox Solomon should be the next White House photographer.”Danielle Staif for TIMEPolitcal Theatre by Mark PetersonPublished by SteidlDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Senior Photo Editor Michelle Molloy: "As William Shakespeare’s Hamlet said, 'The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.' In 'Political Theatre’ Mark Peterson starkly captures the conscience of the American political drama.”
Danielle Staif for TIMEShenasnameh by Amak Mahmoodianco-published by RRB Publishing & ICVL StudioDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photography writer, curator and collector Larissa Leclair, the founder of Indie Photobook Library: "Valid for life, Shenasnameh originally is the name of the birth certificate issued in Iran, a passport-like document that must be updated during a woman’s life depending on dress code laws. Each page of Mahmoodian’s Shenasnameh portrays women dressed in hijab; no hair showing, presented in a simple, repetitive typology study. This design is interrupted by larger photographs, some with eyes, which may have been too expressive, scribbled out. The work reflects men that impose such constraints. Yet, the unique fingerprints and subtleties in expression hint at each woman’s individuality, character and strength.”Danielle Staif for TIMEZZYZX by Gregory HalpernPublished by MACKDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer, writer and curator Aaron Schuman: "In ZZYZX, Gregory Halpern’s insightful eye wanders lyrically throughout the Greater Los Angeles area – from the scorched deserts to the east to the cresting waves of the Pacific Ocean – channeling vision after vision of the sun-kissed California Dream collapsing into an American nightmare. Harsh underlying motifs – of poverty, inequality, insanity, instability, destructive sprawl, natural disaster and more – quietly haunt what are on their surface overwhelmingly beautiful and seductive photographs, set and sequenced in the cleverest of ways. Such saturated color and golden light has rarely felt so sultry, psychedelic and sinister at the same time.”Danielle Staif for TIMENUDOGRAMS by Charles Harbutt Published by Centro Fotografico Alvarez Bravo, Amigos del Lago y del cemab A.C.Danielle Staif for TIMESelected by artist, curator and art director Yolanda Cuomo: "This book makes me laugh. In his introduction, he writes "I started making NUDOGRAMS during my first years as a freelance photographer, an event the magazine industry didn't quite notice. I was broke. All I had was a box of out-of-date paper, the change from lunch and some toothpicks."Danielle Staif for TIMEMaking Memeries by Lucas BlalockPublished by SPBH EditionsDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by Aperture, editor and publisher Lesley Martin: “In Lucas Blalock: Making Memeries, the vocabulary of the printed page is hacked to better address the questions of "post-photographic” work. An augmented reality component extends the border of the book, activating additional layers, movement, and surprise elements that float forth from the images.”Danielle Staif for TIMEPeter Hujar: Lost Downtown by Peter HujarPublished by Steidl/Pace MacGillDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by author and critic Philip Gefter: “Peter Hujar was an underground legend in the downtown ethos of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, before he died of AIDS at the age of 53. He had some very accomplished friends, some of whom he photographed-- William Burroughs, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Fran Lebowitz, Charles Ludlam, Susan Sontag, John Waters, and Robert Wilson. His portraits draw on a balance between Avedon’s existential minimalism and Diane Arbus’s psychological complexity.
Hujar’s work, along with that of his younger contemporary Robert Mapplethorpe, reflects the deep current of sexual change that rose so powerfully to the surface in the 1970s and ’80s. “In many ways Peter Hujar defined Downtown for me,” Vince Aletti, a photography critic for the New Yorker who had been a close friend of Hujar, writes in the essay. “Peter knew it more intimately, more intuitively than I did; he understood its rhythms, nuances, pleasures and pitfalls. He went places I never dared to, and hung out with people I only read about.”Danielle Staif for TIMEAstres Noirs by Katrin Koenning & Sarker ProtickPublished by Chose CommuneDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by Magnum Photos International Global Business Development Manager Fiona Rogers: "Astres Noirs is the perfectly celestial, debut book from photographers Katrin Keonning and Sarker Protick. Separated by oceans (Koenning is based in Australia and Protick in Bangladesh), the book is presented as a 'visual conversation' between the two, and draws on the pair's more immediate work, captured almost obsessively via phone. It's an ethereal, other-worldly experience; figures bathe in half light, galactic dust clouds disrupt familiar landscapes and alien jellyfish seem to be suspended in motion. The duotone printing shimmers with a unique silver quality, providing an astonishingly beautiful publication with a tactility not often experienced in the photobook.”Danielle Staif for TIMEFolklig Idrott by Maximilian StejskalPublished by Edition Patrick FreyDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by publisher and owner of Dashwood Books, David Strettell: “Maximilian Stejskal, an ethnologist and gymnastics teacher from Helsinki, spent his summers throughout the 1930s biking across southern and eastern Finland and parts of Estonia documenting the remnants of the “Folk-athletic games”: outdoor games held amongst the male farming population dating back to at least the 16th century that include the little known pastimes of "Kissing the godfather", "Taking the penny from the table" and "Pulling a bear’s hair”. A wonderfully eccentric collection, beautifully rendered by the Swiss publisher Patrick Frey.”Danielle Staif for TIMEBlack is the Day, Black is the Night by Amy ElkinsSelf Published Danielle Staif for TIMESelected by photography writer, curator and collector Larissa Leclair, the founder of Indie Photobook Library: "Elkins’ long-term project on capital punishment and solitary confinement in the U.S., continues to explore themes of masculinity, vulnerability and identity, with her well-established lens of sophistication and compassion. Successful as an exhibition, Black is the Day, Black is the Night reads even better as a book integrating pixelated portraits, excerpts of her correspondence with inmates and layered images that reflect on time; one to be contemplated in solitude and revisited.”Danielle Staif for TIMEREX by Zackary CanepariPublished by Contrasto BooksDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer and TIME Photo Intern Danielle Amy Staif: “Zackary Canepari's book tells the story of Flint, Michigan. Through the eyes of two sisters – a two-time Olympic Gold Medal boxer Claressa "T-Rex" Shields and her younger sister Briana – we are invited to discover a Flint we thought we knew. The gold shiny cover set my expectations up high. And it did not disappoint. This book is storytelling at its best, a story of victory and triumph. Zackary's ability to immerse you into a place is incredible."Danielle Staif for TIMEEllsworth Kelly: Photographs by Ellsworth KellyPublished by Aperture/Matthew Marks GalleryDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by writer and curator Vince Aletti: "In his introduction, Kelly writes that he started taking photographs in France in 1950, using the camera to “make notations of things I had seen and subjects I had been drawing,” which included branches, buildings, walls, doors, and windows. The earliest pictures in his book, which he compiled just before his death last December, look like drawings, but even as the work becomes more photographic, it remains flat, clean, and matter of fact in a style that recalls Edward Weston, Walker Evans, and the New Topographics crew. “My photographs are simply records of my vision, how I see things,” Kelly writes. “My ideas develop from seeing, not from photographs.” Point taken, but seeing through Kelly’s eyes can be revelatory. That diagonal shadow, that long flat roof, that newly repaired sidewalk square–all these found geometries suddenly look like Ellsworth Kellys.”Danielle Staif for TIMESüddeutsche Zeitung a cooperation between Suddeutsche Zeitung and Steidl, photographs by Robert FrankPublished by Suddeutsche Zeitung and SteidlDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by creative director and editor, Phil Bicker: “When Robert Frank set out on his American journey he did so not with a predetermined view as to what he would find but with a curiosity and open mind for what he might uncover. Almost 70 years on, a retrospective exhibition Robert Frank: Books and Films, 1947–2016, printed his now seminal images on large sheets of newsprint, and displayed them unframed, pasted directly to the walls. The companion, broadsheet newspaper catalogue is equally ingenuous, straightforward and unencumbered. It provides the perfect form and gravitas for Frank’s life work to resonate—as essential, relevant (particularly in light of recent political events and coverage) and thought provoking as he/it ever was.”Danielle Staif for TIMEOut Of Fashion by Landon NordemanPublished by DamianiDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME assistant Photo Editor Marysa Greenawalt: "In Out of Fashion, Landon Nordeman brings us fashion's most familiar faces in an unfamiliar light. For four years, he defied the press pool to document unexpected spectacles during shows in New York, Paris and Milan. The result is a fresh take on an industry through often saturated, highly controlled imagery.”Danielle Staif for TIMEThe Dream by Fabio BucciarelliPublished by FotoEvidenceDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Photo Editor Andrew Katz: "The old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t work for Fabio Bucciarelli’s 'The Dream.' It’s constructed from a life jacket – down to the buckle – and impossible to ignore. To move on, you must unfasten it, just as the refugee who wore it on a treacherous sea would have done. What follows is an intimate exploration of modern migration, made over five years and across 11 countries. The emotions of the arrivals, the humility of being scanned and tagged, the exhaustion of the journey behind and the pain of the uncertainty ahead. Whereas the lack of captions allows the pictures to come together seamlessly, the use of blank pages—both black and white—offers important moments of reflection and reckoning. The people in these pages have been stripped of their humanity in the most public of ways. That is certain. This careful, considered book helps to restore it.”Danielle Staif for TIMEWATCHED! Surveillance, Art and Photography by Hasselblad Foundation, C/O Berlin, Galleri Image, Kunsthal Aarhus, Valand AcademyPublished by Walther KönigDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by writer and curator Fred Ritchin: "Watched! is a highly impressive and extensive compendium of the work of many artists and photographers reflecting upon and attempting to resist the impacts of surveillance, particularly as it affects Europe. Photography, asserted to be “at the core of the history of modern and contemporary surveillance,” allows not only the ability to witness contemporary people and events for humanistic reasons, but also contributes enormously to a growing enterprise of control and discipline. With its many warnings of a looming dystopia, this book is at the very least a testament to the illumination that can be derived from well-conceived books.”
Danielle Staif for TIMEFolk by Aaron SchumanPublished by NBDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by photographer and publisher Jason Fulford: "In his new book, Folk, Aaron Schuman documents the documentation of the process of documenting. The subject is the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow and its collection of folk culture from Eastern Galicia, Schuman’s ancestral home.Schuman’s photographs of the region and the museum are combined with photographs from the museum’s archive, shot on research trips in the countryside over the last century. They often depict a staff photographer photographing an object, in the field, that is now part of the museum’s collection.So the structure of the book is layered and meta, but the overwhelming feeling is less intellectual and more emotional. It’s about love—for people and the things that we make, and for the people who spend their lives preserving stories.”Danielle Staif for TIMEDark Rooms by Nigel ShafranPublished by MACKDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by TIME Senior Photo Editor Myles Little: "Nigel Shafran’s “Dark Rooms” was made during his parents’ deaths, and the resulting images are soaked in loss. Everything around Shafran – from groceries moving down a conveyor belt to subway commuters descending into the dim ground – moves inexorably towards death. His somber studies of household clutter, medical equipment for the elderly and children’s toys are proof that, as Graham Greene writes, "Rooms don't change, ornaments stand where you place them: only the heart decays.”Danielle Staif for TIMEa Handful of Dust by David CampanyPublished by MACKDanielle Staif for TIMESelected by Senior Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, Roxana Marcoci: “David Campany’s intellectually ambitious book cum exhibition catalogue explores the motif of dust, modernity and photography through the course of the 20th century. Campany takes a single photograph from 1920, Dust Breeding, made by Man Ray in collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, to map the work’s uncharted links to a riches of images ranging from aerial reconnaissance pictures to conceptual art. The makeup of the book is simply brilliant as it offers two photographic volumes folded into one another, with the text encapsulated between them—a metaphor for the cumulative effect of ideas.”Danielle Staif for TIME
