The Photobook - Best Book lists and lists and lists...

There seems to be more Best Photobook lists this year than ever before. More lists than best books? I exaggerate of course but to my eye perhaps less really great books in 2012 than previous years. Anyway, you be the judge of that... here are few of the Best Photobook lists that have hit my inbox...

The New York Times 6th Floor Blog... a list of their Top 10 Photobooks, with mentions of Stephen Gills strangely enigmatic work Coexistance, Torbjørn Rødland's sometimes mystifying book Vanilla Partner. And Rineke Dijkstra's Guggenheim catalogue A Retrospective.

TIMES's Best of 2012: The Photobooks we loved. Nominated by a range of TIME staffers plus experts such as Michael Mack, Jeffery Ladd, Jason Fulford, Markus Schaden and heap of others, the list runs to thirty titles. Included is Wolfgang Tillmans Newe Welt, John Gossage's THE ACTOR with brilliant photographs Gossage made in the mid 1970's. Michael Schmidt's Lebensmittel, a book that keeps cropping up on list after list. And deservedly Paul Graham's The Present. Appearing again Torbjørn Rødland's Vanilla Partner.

photo-eye Magazine - the best books of 2012. With 29 nominators each providing a list of plus or minus 10 books, there are books for Africa! Yes Pieter Hugo does get a mention. Along with, Lewis Baltz, Rob Hornstra, Martin Parr, Chris Killip, Stephen Gill, Paul Graham, Anders Petersen, Michael Schmidt, Guy Tillim, Sebastien Girard, Ron Jude, Paul Kooiker, Sam Falls... to name just a few.

The British Journal of Photography - Cool & Noteworthy 2012: The best photobooks of the year. The BJP asked Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, Colin Pantall, Bruno Ceschel, Mark Pearson, Jeffrey Ladd and Sebastian Hau each to come up with a list. Nominees include:
Ron Jude, Robert Adams, Luigi Ghirri, Sacha Maric, Peter Dekens, Billy Monk, Lise Sarfati, John Gossage, Stephen Gill, and more. Paul Graham again...

 

If you go to the links above you can access the full lists from each source. Last year photography writer Marc Feustel did an amazing job analysing all the "best" list and came up with a summary of who was mentioned where and with how many mentions and so forth. I have it on good authority that Marc is here in New Zealand right now enjoying summer so we may have to miss out on his efforts this year. 

PS - Marc Feustel get's the last word: Sorry guys, I'm about to spend 10 days without a computer or internet, so definitely no list of lists this year. Also, in truth there are more fun ways to end the year than trawling the internet for book lists.  Right!