Announcing the Shortlist for the 2025 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards

New York, October 2, 2025—Paris Photo and Aperture are pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards—an annual celebration of the photobook’s enduring role within the evolving narrative of photography. Now in its thirteenth year, the awards recognize excellence in three major categories of photobook publishing: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalog of the Year.

This year, Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards received over one-thousand books from fifty-five countries around the world, including standout entries from Ecuador, Lesotho, Uruguay, and Vietnam. On September 17–19, the 2025 shortlist jury met in New York for three concentrated days of review and deliberation by an international team: Brendan Embser, senior editor, Aperture; Florian Koenigsberger, technologist and photographer; Paul Moakley, executive producer, The New Yorker; Anna Planas, artistic director, Paris Photo; and Keisha Scarville, artist.

“The 2025 PhotoBook Awards shortlist represents an extraordinary range of artistic styles, geographic perspectives, and design innovation, showing how the photobook remains one of the most compelling and effective vehicles for storytelling today,” says Brendan Embser. “From catalogs that consider how digital images have entered the hard drive of our lives, to intensely personal chronicles of individuals facing the extremities of politics and the desire for freedom, these publications speak to a year of vitality and achievement by independent publishers and artists.” Anna Planas adds, “Displayed on the balconies of the Grand Palais during Paris Photo, the selected titles of the PhotoBook Awards will captivate an international audience and stand as one of the most anticipated highlights of the fair.”

The shortlisted books will be exhibited at Paris Photo, open to the public from November 13 through November 16, followed by an international tour, including in New York at Printed Matter, in January 2026, among other venues to be announced.

On Thursday, November 13, a final jury composed of five members will meet in Paris to select the winners for all three prizes, which will be revealed on Friday, November 14, at 3:00 p.m. (CET), at a ceremony at Paris Photo, and announced on Aperture.org and Parisphoto.com.

ABOUT THE AWARD CATEGORIES:

The Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards, founded in 2012, consist of three prizes in the following categories:

First PhotoBook: A $10,000 prize is awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s) whose first finished, publicly available photobook is judged to be the best of the year. Twenty books from this category have been selected for the shortlist, and they will be presented to the final jury for selection and exhibited during Paris Photo.

PhotoBook of the Year: This prize is awarded to the photographer(s)/artist(s) and publisher(s) responsible for the photobook judged to be the best of the year. Ten books from this category have been selected for the shortlist, and they will be presented to the final jury for selection and exhibited during Paris Photo.

Photography Catalog of the Year: Added to the PhotoBook Awards in 2014, this prize is awarded to the publication(s), publisher(s), and/or organizing institution(s) responsible for the exhibition catalog or museum publication judged to be the best of the year. Six books from this category have been selected for the shortlist, and they will be presented to the final jury for selection and exhibited during Paris Photo.

2025 SHORTLIST:

First PhotoBook

Eleonora Agostini
A Study on Waitressing
Witty Books, Turin, Italy
Design by Massimiliano Pace

Genesis Báez
Blue Sun / Sol Azul
Capricious Publishing, New York
Design by Studio Lin

Hélène Bellenger
Bianco Ordinario
Editions de l’Observeur, Vinzelles, France
Design by Hugo Berger and Eleonora Paciullo

Widline Cadet
Ritual [Dis]Appearance / Seremoni Disparisyon
Black Mountains Studio, Los Angeles
Design by Blake Duncanson and Widline Cadet

Daniel Chatard
Niemandsland
The Eriskay Connection, Breda, the Netherlands
Design by Carel Fransen

Louise Desnos
Acedia
Witty Books, Turin, Italy
Design by Ilaria Miotto

Salome Erni
Interesting Things
Self-published, The Hague
Design by Salome Erni

Alanna Fields
Unveiling
Meteoro Editions, Amsterdam
Design by Brian Paul Lamotte

Christine Furuya-Gössler
Photographs (1978–1985)
Chose Commune, Marseille, France
Design by Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi and Perrine Serre

Farid Renais Ghimas
Angan-Angan Harsa
Jordan, jordan Édition, Jakarta
Design by Jordan Marzuki

Mohamed Hassan
Our Hidden Room
Ediciones Posibles, Fundación Photographic Social Vision, Barcelona; PHREE and Editorial RM, Barcelona
Design by Brian Carroll

Balarama Heller
Sacred Place
TIS Books, New York
Design by Balarama Heller, David Schnapper, and Carl Wooley

Daniel Stephen Homer
Route de la belle etoile (Route of the beautiful star)
GOST Books, London
Design by GOST

Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø
Frida Forever
Disko Bay, Copenhagen
Design by Spine Studio

Heba Khalifa
Tiger’s Eye
Self-published, Waziz Books, Cairo
Design by Nike Dieterich

Mahmoud Khattab
The Dog Sat Where We Parted
Self-published, Cairo
Design by Mahmoud Khattab

András Ladocsi
There Is a Big River, in Which There Is a Big Island, in Which There Is a Lake, in Which There Is an Island, in Which There Is a Small House, Where a Life Is Growing in a Womb
VOID, Athens
Design by João Linneu and Myrto Steirou

Martha Naranjo Sandoval
Small Death
MACK, London
Design by Martha Naranjo Sandoval and Morgan Crowcroft-Brown

Alick Phiri
Lusaka Street
Art Paper Editions, Ghent, Belgium
Design by Jurgen Maelfeyt

Clara Simas
My father died three times / Meu pai morreu três vezes
Propágulo, Recife, Brazil
Design by Clara Simas and Estúdio Ligatura

PhotoBook of the Year

Hicham Benohoud
The Classroom
Loose Joints Publishing, Marseille, France / London
Design by Loose Joints Studio

Soumya Sankar Bose
A Discreet Exit Through Darkness & Things We Lost Last Night
Self-published / Red Turtle Photobook and Mandas, Kolkata, India
Design by Barnali Bose

Pippa Garner
Personal Ads
Art Paper Editions, Ghent, Belgium
Design by Jurgen Maelfeyt

Pia-Paulina Guilmoth
Flowers Drink the River
STANLEY/BARKER, London
Design by ramel·luzoir

Katherine Hubbard
The Great Room
Loose Joints Publishing, Marseille, France / London
Design by Loose Joints Studio

Edgar Martins
Anton’s Hand Is Made of Guilt. No Muscle or Bone. He Has a Gung-Ho Finger & a Grief-Stricken Thumb.
The Moth House, Bedford, United Kingdom
Design by Pedro Falcão

Jorge Panchoaga
Kalabongó
Editorial RM and Musuk Nolte, Barcelona
Design by Estudio Herrera

Bharat Sikka
Ripples in the Pond
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen

Éva Szombat
Echo in Delirium
Symposion and Everybody Needs Art, Budapest
Design by Anna Bárdy

Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa
INDEX 2025
Roma Publications, Amsterdam
Design by Roger Willems

Photography Catalog of the Year

Black Chronicles: Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain
Edited by Renée Mussai
Thames & Hudson and Autograph, London
Design by Fraser Muggeridge Studio

Calamita/á: An Investigation into the Vajont Catastrophe
Edited by Gianpaolo Arena and Marina Caneve
Fw:Books, Amsterdam
Design by Hans Gremmen

Donna Gottschalk and Hélène Giannecchini: Nous Autres (We Others)
Edited by Nathalie Chapuis and Camille Cibot
Atelier EXB and LE BAL, Paris
Design by Coline Aguettaz

Generalized Visual Resistance: Photobooks and Liberation Movements
Edited by Catarina Boieiro and Raquel Schefer
ATLAS, Lisbon
Design by Teo Furtado and Ana Schefer

The Lure of the Image
Edited by Marco De Mutiis, Gwendolyn Fässler, Doris Gassert, and Alessandra Nappo
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, and Spector Books, Leipzig, Germany
Design by UNSTATED

Paiter Suruí, Gente de verdade: Um projeto do Coletivo Lakapoy
Edited by Thyago Nogueira, Txai Suruí, and Lahayda Mamani Poma
Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo
Design by Estúdio Daó

Special Mention

Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing Could Have Prepared Us—Everything Could Have Prepared Us
Edited by Florian Ebner and Olga Frydryszak-Rétat
Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Spector Books, Leipzig, Germany
Design by deValence

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*The Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards maintain a strict policy of recusal in which jurors must remove themselves from the discussion of books in which they were directly involved; those books must be unanimously voted in by the remaining jurors.

About Paris Photo
Paris Photo is the world’s largest international art fair dedicated to the photographic medium. An annual event for collectors, professionals, artists, and enthusiasts, Paris Photo offers its visitors the most qualitative and diverse selection of artworks alongside an ambitious public program with leading figures in the field.

About Aperture
Aperture is a nonprofit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From its base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through its acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Established in 1952 to advance “creative thinking, significantly expressed in words and photographs,” Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society.

Press Contacts:
Lauren Van Natten, Aperture, publicity@aperture.org
Marie Crouzet, Paris Photo, marie.crouzet@rxglobal.com