Celebrating Photographic Excellence: The 2025 PhotoBook Awards Laureates

Unveiling the Visionaries: Celebrating the Art of the PhotoBook

The Prestigious Panel: Curators of Photographic Narratives

On November 13, 2025, a panel of esteemed professionals convened in Paris to determine the winners of the 2025 Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards. The jury comprised individuals with extensive expertise in visual arts, design, and curatorial practices, including Coralie Gauthier, Shanay Jhaveri, Manuel Krebs, Emily LaBarge, and Guinevere Ras. Their collective insight ensured a thorough and discerning selection process.

Global Perspectives: A Resurgent Medium

Shanay Jhaveri, a juror for the awards, noted the prevailing themes of archival investigation and cross-generational discussions among the submitted works. She emphasized that the selected books and winners underscore the enduring importance and vitality of the photobook form, particularly in an era where digital images often lack tangible presence.

A Worldwide Showcase: Recognizing International Talent

The 2025 PhotoBook Awards drew an impressive more than one thousand submissions from 55 nations, with notable participation from countries like Ecuador, Lesotho, Uruguay, and Vietnam. Prior to the final selection, an international shortlist jury met in New York for an intensive three-day review process. This preliminary panel included Brendan Embser, Florian Koenigsberger, Paul Moakley, Anna Planas, and Keisha Scarville, who meticulously narrowed down the extensive pool of entries.

Exhibiting Excellence: A Journey of Visual Storytelling

An exhibition featuring the 37 shortlisted books for the 2025 PhotoBook Awards, including the prize-winning titles, is currently on display at Paris Photo until November 16. Following its debut, the exhibition will travel to Printed Matter in New York in January 2026, and later to the Leipzig Photobook Festival, with additional locations to be announced. This touring exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary photobook artistry.

Photography Catalog of the Year: Amplifying Anticolonial Voices

The accolade for Photography Catalog of the Year was bestowed upon Generalized Visual Resistance: Photobooks and Liberation Movements, edited by Catarina Boieiro and Raquel Schefer, and designed by Teo Furtado and Ana Schefer. This compelling anthology delves into the relationship between photography and anticolonial movements in former Portuguese African colonies from the 1960s to the 1980s. It features texts in multiple languages and highlights organizations such as FRELIMO, which utilized photobooks to foster international solidarity through powerful visual communication. The book reproduces covers and spreads from rare publications, showcasing the diverse visual strategies employed by publishers in various global cities to envision African freedom.

First PhotoBook Award: Exploring Gendered Labor and Self-Presentation

Eleonora Agostini's A Study on Waitressing, published by Witty Books and designed by Massimiliano Pace, received the First PhotoBook Award. This timely and intricate work examines the performative roles women undertake in the labor market. Agostini's conceptual study uses fictionalized images of a waitress, portrayed by her own mother, across six chapters of sequential visuals. These sequences, interspersed with translucent pages containing handwritten Italian notes, explore subtle gestures and behaviors. The book notably incorporates manual-like text describing how waitresses are expected to present themselves, punctuated by the recurring phrase, “Always Smile While Speaking,” highlighting the societal pressures and expectations placed upon women in service roles.

PhotoBook of the Year: Fostering Creative Freedom in Education

The Classroom by Hicham Benohoud, published by Loose Joints Publishing and designed by Loose Joints Studio, was honored as PhotoBook of the Year. This collection of black-and-white photographs, created between 1992 and 2002, documents Benohoud's improvisation as a high school art teacher in Marrakech. Feeling constrained by the postcolonial Moroccan educational system, he transformed his class into a space for joyful photographic experimentation. His students, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, posed with makeshift props and surreal outfits, their faces playfully obscured. Juror Florian Koenigsberger praised the work's resourcefulness and its portrayal of imagination within limitations, calling it a model for creativity.

Jurors' Special Mention: A Transgender Journey of Resilience and Mysticism

Pia-Paulina Guilmoth's Flowers Drink the River, published by STANLEY/BARKER and designed by ramel·luzoir, earned a Jurors' Special Mention. This book immerses the viewer in a nocturnal dreamscape, chronicling Guilmoth's gender transition over two years. Photographing her community in rural Maine, Guilmoth captures the joy and challenges of being a trans woman in a conservative environment. Employing a large-format camera and heavy flash, her images blend the mystical with the ominous, often hinting at rituals beyond the frame. The photographs depict shimmering landscapes, intertwining bodies, and sparkling natural elements, reflecting Guilmoth's quest for resistance, magic, and security in a world that often lacks compassion.