Photobook Reviews, Episode 16 – by Kate Schultze
So I guess you could call this a 2025 favourites list, but after going to a few book fairs again this year I realise that no matter how much time you take, no matter how thoroughly you go through each table, there is quite a high chance you missed THE book, just because you bumped into your friend or the queue to the loo got smaller and it was too busy to go back to the same table after.
This year’s themes that piqued my interest were how people construct, perform, or negotiate who they are, alongside the politics of looking and questioning the (mostly male) gaze, meaning questioning who is seen, who is framed, how and by whom. Many of these projects also engage with memory and the reworking of personal or historical archives, as well as the emotional residue that images can hold. There is a strong focus on embodiment, vulnerability, and transformation and additionally, what definitely stood out to me this year compared to last year, a clear engagement with contemporary culture and digital life. Particularly so where technology and social media shape memory, narrative, and the construction and preservation of identity.
So here are 10 +2 books that came out in 2025 that I found (or maybe they found me) that I absolutely adore.
Frida Forever - Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø
This comes as no surprise to you, I’ve already written about this book in a whole separate blog post, but this is my favourite release of the year and cannot be mentioned enough. Frida Forever by Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø blends self‑portraiture, staged scenes, and candid images to explore the photographer’s life with chronic illness and paraplegia alongside the fleeting freedom of youth after a life‑altering accident and ongoing medical challenges. The book uses raw, evocative imagery and Y2K aesthetics to confront vulnerability, strength, identity, and the emotional and physical realities of illness, challenging viewers’ perceptions of the body, ableism, and what it means to truly “look” at illness, making it one of the most significant photobook releases of the year.
256GB - Yung Lean
Some would argue, this is not a proper photo book, but on the contrary, I think this book shows perfectly how we engage with modern culture and questions what happens to images when they are taken out of their short form content life and being taken into the long form or permanent context of a book, in which they might not belong on first sight. (But like they do, believe me.) 256GB is Yung Lean’s first book, tracing the evolution and continual reinvention of the rapper cult icon. Built from 574 intimate iPhone photos spanning his personal camera roll, the nearly 600 page books fuses classical bookmaking traditions with Yung Lean’s contemporary, internet-born aesthetic—nostalgic, surreal, melancholic, and often humorous. Each image, indexed with candid titles like “Me and Mum” or “Dead Fish,” echoes Lean’s introspective yet playful lyricism, turning ephemeral digital moments into a lasting, tangible record of his artistry and influence. Maybe a bit of a surprise pick for everyone, but worth to have a look if you can get your hands on one!
The Fold - Hoda Afshar
The Fold by Iranian artist Hoda Afshar is a striking reworking of colonial-era photographs, transforming the archive of early 20th-century French psychiatrist Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault into a space of resistance and reflection. Through darkroom printing and digital manipulation, Afshar disrupts the original intent of images of the veiled subjects, exposing and challenging the lingering power dynamics of Orientalist and colonialist gazes. The book’s 960-plus reappropriated silver gelatin prints, alongside essays and conversations, trace the complex histories of the veil and the Islamic female body, turning archival material into a critical meditation on identity, visibility, and the politics of looking. Also one shouldn’t forget to mention to beautiful but also fragile materiality of the book as well as the beautiful idea for a cover by Loose Joints.
Fear of Mirrors - Alba Zari
This was one of the books I stumbled across on said book fair table, and thank god for that. Fear of Mirrors by Alba Zari investigates self-representation in the digital age, exploring how mirrors and screens shape the way women see themselves. Zari examines the patriarchal and algorithmic forces that influence female identity, questioning whether technology has truly liberated self-expression or just reframed old constraints. The project exposes the mechanics of social media and invites viewers to reflect on contemporary society, leaving a lingering question: have we broken free from the mirror, or are we still trapped by its reflection?
Cash Me Online - Amandine Kuhlmann
Even though this project came out two years ago, the zine corresponding to the exhibition at Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris was released in the spring this year. Cash me Online by Amandine Kuhlmann explores social media as a performative space through a hypersexualised, fictional alter ego. Using performance, video, and deepfake technology, Kuhlmann exaggerates online stereotypes—from “Mukbang” eating videos to the “Clean girl” wellness archetype—blending her own image with found footage to expose their artificiality. The work critiques how social media shapes and commodifies women’s bodies, using humor and irony to spark reflection on these pressures while opening a space for critical engagement and liberation.
Murmurings of the Skin - Olivia Arthur
Also starting by the idea of her body being perceived, Murmurings of the Skin by Olivia Arthur began during her first pregnancy, sparked by the sudden public scrutiny of her body and her growing fascination with its machine-like capacity to create life. Through photographs focused on texture, movement, and touch, the book weaves together intimate images of pregnancy and motherhood with portraits made during the pandemic, and studies of bodies shaped by technology, illness, or loss. Moving fluidly across place and time, the work invites reflection on intimacy, comfort, and what it means to inhabit—and replicate—the human body in a rapidly evolving world.
Plaukai - Francesca Allen
A small but gorgeous publication is Plaukai in which Francesca Allen documents the surreal spectacle of Lithuania’s World’s Longest Hair competition, where hundreds of women gather annually to celebrate tradition, obsession, and identity. Capturing nearly 200 participants—from young girls with pristine locks to older women whose hair trails at their feet—Allen’s photographs follow the ritualistic runway, judging, and finale with intimacy and attention to detail. Accompanied by a text from Frankie Dunn exploring the cultural and generational significance of long hair, the series reveals the fascinating intersection of beauty, heritage, and personal expression.
Poppy Promises - Thomas Duffield
This is a special one to me as I’ve known about this project for a good few years and seeing it beautifully published by Witty Books now fills me with great joy. Poppy Promises by Thomas Duffield traces a nine-year journey of reconnecting with his father after years of estrangement and addiction. The series combines portraiture and allegorical still lifes to explore the emotional complexities of a family affected by heroin, highlighting both the overlooked resilience of his mother and the tensions, highs, and lows of their shared history. Interwoven with text messages between father and son, the work balances subtle humor and poignant reflection, creating an intimate and layered portrait of reconciliation, memory, and familial bonds. I might have shed a tear or two looking at this in Paris, please please please take time and sit with this and let it do its magic.
Ripples in the Pond - Bharat Sikka
A very spontaneous buy at Off Print was Ripples in the Pond by Bharat Sikka which explores Makharda, a peripheral township outside Kolkata, weaving together memory, modernity, and the quiet pressures of urban encroachment. Through a process-driven photographic approach, the artist reflects on the town’s ponds—both literal and symbolic—as mirrors of temporal and socio-cultural tension. Drawing on the nostalgic, semi-rural sensibilities of the 1980s Indian series Malgudi Days, the work blends personal return with broader reflections on change, capturing the interplay between past and present, fantasy and reality, and the rural and the emerging urban landscape.
Fang - Freya Brooke Verona Copeland
Hearing Freya talk about this project felt surreal, Fang is a deeply personal exploration of how a place can awaken trauma, born from the artist’s experience trapped during the DANA floods in Catarroja, Valencia, in October 2024. Rather than documenting the disaster itself, the project examines the emotional and psychological aftermath—flashbacks, imagined escape routes, and the struggle to navigate streets transformed by mud and destruction. Through image-making, the work confronts memory, trauma, and reconstruction, reflecting on both personal survival and the absence of aid for countless Valencians left vulnerable in the wake of the floods. Trauma captured beautifully if that’s even possible. This one will stay with everyone for a while.
Charred Cell - Sam Hutchinson
Another way of investigating the estrangement of space between trauma and awakening shows Charred Cell by Sam Hutchinson. Through deconstructed images of familiar interiors, authority, and control, the work balances warmth and hostility, optimism and unease, using abstraction as a buffer against anxiety and horror. By deliberately obscuring meaning, Hutchinson invites viewers to reflect on how emotion is processed through images, questioning what fear reveals, conceals, and how the aesthetics of fiction blur into lived reality. If you fancy to read more about this quite abstract work, there is a more detailed and also – I guess I would call it unhinged? – review of this title on American Suburb X.
The Marble - David Brandon Geeting
Last but very much not least I shall close this list on a more positive note with The Marble by David Brabdon Geeting. He pushes photography to the edge of absurdity, blending commercial gloss, fashion fantasy, and the quirks of amateur image-making into a playful, surreal visual language. Everyday objects become characters, color and texture suggest emotion, and narrative logic yields to visual rhythm, creating a book that is as humorous as it is heartfelt. With a foreword by Caroline Polachek, the series explores chaos and control, surface and sensation, and even flirts with existential questions—ultimately inviting viewers to wonder what happens when photography lets go of itself, resulting in something beautifully strange and tender. A playful, or maybe I would go as far as saying a campy book in the mostly very serious world of photography. Makes for a breather and a nice change.
This is 2025 wrapped, as always thanks for making it to the end of this lengthy post and I hope you discovered some new titles. Now go and buy a book, support photographers and publishers (and of course buy from an independent book store). Can’t wait for the lots and lots of new titles in 2026.
