See for photo-eye’s Best Books of 2014 ...
By Petra Stavast
Idea Books
Petra Stavast’s book is a great example of how editing used as a storytelling tool and not as a mere sequencing of images, can lead a project to another level. A complex puzzle and crossroads construction of the beauty to a find the intriguing real story behind Ramya’s life in a very humble and delicate way.
By Erik Kessels
KesselsKramer
Erik Kessels continues his epic journey of humanizing photography in the digital age by showing the beauty of the error. Taking advantage of the great power of irony, In Almost Every Picture makes us reflect on the free will of the decisive moment.
By Bertien Van Manen
MACK
Thirty years of rural family history photographed in Van Manen's inimitable style. Her command of the snapshot aesthetic balances on the edge of sober precision and drunken chaos.
By Anouk Kruihof
Onomatopee
Photo collector Brad Feuerhelm is becoming a key instigator of original and experimental approaches to the photobook — this project develops an extraordinary series of methodologies to create something new with Feuerhelm’s ‘cabinet of curiosities,’ as he describes his photographic collection. This book leaves you feeling unsure of and dislocated from everything you think you know about photography, old and new. Chapter 5, called ‘Command Shift 3; New Photography,’ is perhaps the freshest and most innovative statement on photography in 2014.
By Awoiska van der Molen
Fw: Books
The title of this book (which I believe is now sold out – with a 2nd edition on the way) means to withdraw, or to be in seclusion. This book is endlessly rewarding, not only for its superlative technical qualities, but that it comes very close to replicating the experience of walking alone through a vast, dark, foreboding landscape. The book feels like one huge picture of a landscape that we experience bit by bit as we creep forward into and through the darkness.
By Viviane Sassen
Prestel
"This project is an exploration of the beauty of the everyday," writes Sassen in her introduction, "an investigation of the sculptural qualities of the ordinary."
By Anouk Kruithof
Self-Published
Anouk Kruithof is super smart and this is her super smartest book. She deals with hugely complex subjects (how we see, curate, and exhibit photographs) in a light and accessible form, making you work to see the pictures. Imaginative, intelligent and funny, it’s more about the process of how we select and view of images than a photobook.
By Hans Eijkelboom
Phaidon
This inexpensive paperback book is the perfect container for hundreds of mirrors collected by Hans Eijkelboom over 22 years of extraordinary and methodical investigation through the crowded streets of Western cities. At first it seems a simple catalog with a minimalist design. However, it suggests a deep, yet accessible reflection on the homologating effects of a deeply individualistic society, explained through rigid photographic grids and synthetic captions as footer.
By Geert Goiris
Roma Publications
A moving book in a delicate wrapping, with details that offer stillness and time to let your thoughts run and take in these quiet images. They don’t need to be big concepts. The images seem almost made in a snapshot manner, but at the same time I sense a lot of thought behind these images. Or maybe it’s because they are the kind of images you recognize without knowing why. I find myself accepting all of these moments, sculptures and the emotions they give me. The whole experience reminds me of the walk you would take after experiencing something strong: then you see and experience everything differently. Geert saw for us and I feel both lost and found.
By Johannes Schwartz
Roma Publications
Food for animals in the zoo is maybe the weirdest and least photogenic subject for a photobook, but when put together in this colorful monumental work, perfectly size, printed with so much love and handwork, it becomes a masterpiece and I can’t stop looking.
By Erik Van der Weijde
4478 Zine
The house and walled garden where Erik lives with his wife, son and pets shape the boundaries of this book. Only once to be crossed with a very upsetting image just outside the walls. One of his best books ever!
By Elisabeth Tonnard
J&L Books
Again a book with people on the street, but this time they play a role in a story different from reality. These men and women are photographed by night, staring in the distance, combined on every spread with a translation of the first sentence from Dante’s Inferno. It becomes haunting and beautiful at the same time. This book was published some years ago, but there is a reprint now and I think every book-lover should have it.
By Erik van der Weijde
4478 Zine
Besides photobooks, I am a secret collector of stuffed animals. What can I say, I just love Teddy Bears.
By Anjès Gesink
van Zoetendaal
Ill birds, held up by hands covered in latex gloves and shot in front a plain background. It all sounds very cold, but the images in this book are anything but. Through the contrast between the fragile animals and their clinic surroundings shines warmth and care. Simply beautiful.
By Jan Hoek
Art Paper Editions
Jan’s simple act of asking people how they wish to be presented is unexpectedly powerful in the lines it draws about political and cultural assumptions of self-representation. Wait until you see the spider image.
By Stephen Keppel
FW: Books
Great edit with a sharp eye for unintended compositions and imperfection. Keppel's photography uniquely merges with its graphic representation.
By Daan van Golden
Walther König
A meta-book showing pages of books with reproductions of Van Golden's photography. This fits perfectly to the artist who works mainly with reproduced images as source material.
By Johan Van Der Keuken
Van Zoetendaal Publishers
Another careful and devoted production by Willem van Zoetendaal with the legacy of Johan van der Keuken (1938-2001). Such a gentle work.
See for
The 15 Best Dutch Photobooks 2014 De Volkskrant by MEREL BEM, ARNO HAIJTEMA EN MADELON MEESTER Photography
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