Tis the season to eat, read, gift and be merry. The gift of a photo book is a failsafe option. But with so many of them out there, it can be hard to choose the right one. Luckily for you, we’ve reviewed the most present-worthy photo books of 2024, so you can make sure you’re putting something truly memorable underneath your Christmas tree for your friends and family. From AnOther to you, here’s a guide to help you on your way to gift-giving success.
Martin Parr’s latest book with Phaidon surveys his editorial and advertorial work that’s in-your-face, a bit bonkers but always thoroughly entertaining. The Brit’s shoot-not-sell approach to fashion is a breath of fresh air and makes him a bold choice for risk-taking brands. And plus, there is always much to learn from the master’s penchant for fun framing and triviality, whether he’s shooting bad weather or Balenciaga. (While you’re at it, be sure to wed your present with a ParrChristmas card, which features either festive lights, poultry, snow or Santa.)
Destined to jingle bells is this jaw-dropping overview of Charles Jourdan shoes lensed by Guy Bourdin. As meetings of minds go, theirs is of the highest order, providing a glimpse into the daring and revolutionary French fashion scene in the late 1960s and 70s. The book comes in a handsome hardback format, jam-packed with mise-en-scène that are surreal and simply delicious. Fashion and fetishism have never been so intertwined. Our wrapping recommendation is classic red and white candy cane paper.
Daido Moriyama’s Record 2 will keep anyone hooked through the dark depths of December. It compiles the “best ofs” from recent issues of Record, the famous magazine Moriyama has been publishing since the 70s, which serves as a testament to his obsessiveness, restlessness and fundamental fascination with urban life. This literal page-turner comes outfitted in a floral slipcase and swanks glossy full-bleeds. Thames & Hudson have done a splendid job elevating Moriyama’s magazine spreads into something artful and ornamental – a real object of desire.
This stunningly produced, “pillow-like” book in English made fromSophie Calle’s transgressive 1979 experiment is ideal to snuggle up with, or, even better, peruse with a bedfellow. Offering her Parisian bed to strangers, and narrating her piercing observations thereafter, Calle toes the intimacy and estrangement involved in being with another person. Through a dreamy blend of fact, fantasy and fiction, The Sleepers unravels as a kind of game, in which it’s impossible to tell where life leaves off and where art begins – and where they embrace.
From the very first page, Joan Fontcuberta’s elaborate hoax transports you elsewhere. It revisits the long-lost archives of controversial German zoologist Dr Peter Ameisenhaufen, who was born in 1895 and mysteriously vanished in 1955. Field notes, maps, audio recordings, scientific reports, X-rays and photography detail his discoveries of obscure and fantastic creatures such as furry fish, legged snakes, flying apes and a monkey with a unicorn horn. Treading the impossibly tight light between fact and farce, Fauna demonstrates how photography is indeed stranger than fiction. The best way to describe it is that it’s a children’s book, but for adults.
Another first-rate reissue comes from Steidl’s workshop in Göttingen. The revered 1945 masterpiece of Alexey Brodovitch, the late Harper’s Bazaar art director and photographer, might be beyond imitation, but this gets pretty close. Every detail of the original has been considered, from the French wrapped dust jacket to the mechanical printing process (you’ve never seen blacks like these!). The dramatic flux of imagery captures the rehearsals and performances of ballet companies in New York in all their ecstatic magic. What you end up experiencing is Brodovitch’s own kind of performance, in which he obliterates traditional technique, champions blur and spontaneity, all the while probing the essence of photography itself – that is, not what he sees, but what he feels. This is a real collector’s item!
A standout entry into the family photography genre this year is Motoyuki Daifu’s brilliantly titled My family is a pubis so I cover them in pretty panties. It documents life in the Daifus’ family home in the suburbs of Yokohama, which was, for the photographer, an unexpected but infinite source of weirdness and wonder. Across many years of up-close, anti-Instagramable snapshots, the family’s endearing particularities accumulate and add up to a touching effect. The book boasts a vibrant and splashy design, and would sit perfectly on a nightstand.
More home comforts abound in Deanna Dikeman’s follow-up to her instantly iconic book chronicling her parents waving goodbye. Housed in a charming cover that’s modelled off the scarf of Dikeman’s mother, the photographs of Relative Moments take us behind closed doors, inside the artist’s family home in Iowa, where daily activities from barbequing to baking are observed with a tender eye. This is the kind of organic and durational picture-making that sets Dikeman’s practice apart. She has produced a truly timeless book which, one feels, ought to be passed through the generations – a beautiful tribute to her family and family in general.
Very much deserving an “A” for concept and execution is this gigantic expedition into the peculiar human desire to touch things. Erik Kessels, the amateur photographer’s best friend, and co have rummaged through thousands of found family albums and meticulously organised photographs by object, from cars and cakes to tennis nets and, of course, Christmas trees. The result is quite the ride. Oh, how photography touches our lives in countless ways!
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