We all have our favourite photobooks. Our choices are subjective and often based on specific areas of the photographic medium that we connect with. However, there are some books that I believe every photographer should at least be aware of. This list is as subjective as any other, but I hope you agree that those included, deserve to be known and seen. I will have missed out some of your favourites, so please don’t tell me what I should have included, maybe they will appear in future lists...

Alexey Brodovitch’s, Ballet. 1945

Art Director and photographer Alexey Brodovitch’s Ballet is a legend amogst photo books and one of the most influential and coveted works in the history of the photobook, but so rare that many connoisseurs have never seen a copy of the original edition, much less held it in their own hands. You can see the full book here: https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2014/10/06/video-ballet-first-edition-1945-by-alexey-brodovitch/

William Eggleston,William Eggleston’s Guide. 1976

William Eggleston’s Guide was the first one-man show of colour photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museum’s first publication of colour photography. The reception was divided and passionate. The book and show forced the art world to deal with colour photography, a medium scarcely taken seriously at the time. The Guide contained 48 images edited down from 375 shot between 1969 and 1971.

Richard Avedon, Observations: Richard Avedon. 1959

Unlike other photography books, Observations layout was informed by magazine design (particularly the work of Alexey Brodovitch the art director of Harpers Bazaar and Avedon’s mentor). Much of it was given over to portraits of celebrities including Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Louis Armstrong, Humphrey Bogart. It also included an essay by writer Truman Capote.You can see the whole book here www.avedonfoundation.org/observations-1959-essay-by-truman-capote

Henri Cartier Bresson, The Decisive Moment. 1952

The Decisive Moment (Images à la Sauvette in French) brings together photographic material from the first twenty years of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s career. Published in 1952 by Verve, with an original cover by Matisse. It was the result of a collaboration between the photographer, the famous art critic and publisher Tériade, and the painter. The American version, published the same year by Simon and Schuster, was the first to introduce the now-famous expression “decisive moment”.

Robert Frank, The Americans. 1958

First published in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959, The Americans changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American. All that and an introduction by beat poet and writer Jack Kerouac.

Bill Brandt, Perspective on Nudes. 1961

In 1961 Bill Brandt published Perspective of Nudes. From that point on his nudes became amongst his most famous and acclaimed works. Chronologically arranged, the photographs record his transition from an early romantic style to more radical themes, ending with the pure form of extreme close-ups, taken on the beaches of East Sussex, Normandy and the Mediterranean.

William Klein, Life is Good and Good For You in New York. 1956

Klein published his first book Life is Good and Good For You in New York in 1956 and it won the Prix Nadar the following year. Capturing the rough and tumble of daily life, Klein’s brutally honest images caused a major sensation and was a publishing success unlike Robert Franks’ The Americans.

Brassai, Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night). 1933

Brassai’s groundbreaking Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night) was among the first to explore night-time photography, thanks to the distribution of electric streetlights. Originally designed by Brassaï, working as a journalist by day, by night he roamed the streets of the capital and visited its bistros, sharing moments in the lives of the prostitutes and peddlers, down-and-outs, and illicit lovers who lived on the margins of society. Paris by Night, features sixty-two images.

Diane Arbus, Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph. 1972

The publication of Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph in 1972 along with the posthumous retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art offered the general public its first encounter with her work. The monograph, composed of 80 photographs, and was edited and designed by the painter, art director and Arbus friend Marvin Israel, and her daughter Doon Arbus.

Walker Evans, American Photographs. 1938

The original edition of American Photographs was a carefully prepared letterpress production, published by The Museum of Modern Art in 1938 to accompany an exhibition of photographs by Evans that captured scenes of America in the early 1930s.

Image: From Ballet by Alexey Brodovitch

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

©Grant Scott 2026