PhotoBook Awards 2026: 35 titles shortlisted, winners on 13 November
The shortlist for the 2026 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards came out on 8 October. It names 35 books across three categories: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year and Photography Catalog of the Year. The awards are now in their fourteenth year. According to Aperture, this year brought a record number of submissions, from 56 countries, with Armenia, Iran, Morocco and Venezuela among those singled out.
The jury
The shortlist jury met in New York from 22 to 24 September. Its members were the artist Alejandro Cartagena; Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, director of design at the Judd Foundation; Michael Famighetti, editor in chief of Aperture; Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo; and Anshika Varma, curator and founder of Offset Projects. Famighetti called photobooks "a quietly powerful medium". A separate final jury of five will meet in Paris on 12 November and choose the winners. They will be announced at a ceremony at Paris Photo on Friday 13 November at 3 p.m. CET.
PhotoBook of the Year
This prize goes jointly to the photographer and the publisher. The ten contenders include Sohrab Hura's Snow and Keisha Scarville's Passports, 2012–2025, both from MACK in London, and Bieke Depoorter's The Beds I Slept In (Hannibal Books, Antwerp). Also on the list are Takashi Homma's This Is Not My Cat (Nieves and Perimeter Editions), Newsha Tavakolian's And They Laughed at Me (Kehrer Verlag) and Silent Springs by Michele Borzoni and Rocco Rorandelli (Loose Joints). Bérangère Fromont, Roger Grasas, Nick Haymes and Zhu Mo complete the category.
First PhotoBook
This is the largest category, with twenty titles. The Paris Photo page puts the prize at $10,000. Dutch collectors will spot several familiar imprints. Franco Dupuy's Cruising Diaries comes from Set Margins in Eindhoven and Allie Tsubota's Dead Letter Room from The Eriskay Connection in Breda. Farren van Wyk's Mixedness Is My Mythology, designed by Hans Gremmen, was published by Fw:Books with Deadbeat Club. Also shortlisted are Miranda Barnes's Social Season (Important Flowers), Jeremy Liebman's Coincidence (Apartamento) and two books from Art Paper Editions in Ghent, by Adél Koleszár and Augustin Lignier. Two are self-published: Moeko Ishiguro's Notation(s) and Joël van Houdt's Afghanistanism.
Photography Catalog of the Year
There are five nominees:
- A Kind of Paradise, Nanina Guyer (Spector Books)
- Ecos de la Memoria, Marta Martín Núñez (Editorial RM and Campgràfic)
- Ghana! Rêver l'indépendance, 1957–1976, Damarice Amao (Atelier EXB)
- L Is for Look: Children's Photobooks, Anne Lacoste and Rose Durr (Spector Books)
- More, Blommers & Schumm with Julie Peeters (Roma Publications, Amsterdam)
Seeing the books
All the shortlisted titles will be on show at Paris Photo in the Grand Palais. Afterwards they go on an international tour, which includes PhotoIreland in Dublin in December 2026. Further venues are still to be announced.
Sources
- Announcing the 2026 PhotoBook Awards Shortlist, Aperture
- Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards - Shortlist, Paris Photo