The Best Photography Books Every Serious Photographer Should Read (2026 Reading List)
How This Reading Guide Is Organised Whether you’re studying for a BA, MA, MFA or PhD, or simply want to deepen your understanding of photography, this guide… These books will change the way you think about photography, not simply how you make photographs. One of the questions I’m asked most often by photographers preparing for postgraduate study is surprisingly simple: What should I be reading? Photography is one of those rare disciplines where the most influential books often have very little to say about cameras. Instead, they challenge how we think about images, memory, ethics, representation, politics and ultimately ourselves. Over the past few years, as I’ve developed my own…
From My Bookshelves: 10 Photography Books That Continue to Influence My Practice
Looking back through almost two decades of writing for TheAppWhisperer, reviewing photobooks, interviewing photographers and studying photography myself, I recently realised I had reached a rather practical problem: I had run out of room for my photobook collection. The solution was the installation of yet another set of bookcases, a reminder not only of how many photography books I have accumulated over the years, but also of how frequently I return to them. As I was unpacking and reorganising the shelves, I found myself revisiting old favourites and rediscovering books that had influenced my thinking at different stages of my photographic journey. The titles included here represent only a small…
Book Review – Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself
Book Review – Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself As an avid collector of photobooks, readers will know of my deep fondness for second-hand bookshops, where I’m always on the lookout for hidden treasures. This week, my senses were finely attuned as I wandered into one such store, and to my delight, I came across a mint, first edition of Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself. Having previously studied this remarkable work, I was thrilled to discover it on the shelf—a true gem I never expected to find. Stumbling upon this book felt like an extraordinary stroke of luck, and I couldn’t be more elated by the serendipity of it.…
Tickle Your Fancy – #21 – NSFW
Welcome back to our twenty first post in our new section ‘Tickle Your Fancy’. ‘Tickle Your Fancy’ includes a round-up of five links to articles from around the internet that have specifically interested us during the course of the week. Ones that we feel are relevant to your interest in photography and art. Just to explain the title for this section ‘Tickle Your Fancy’ is an English idiom and essentially means that something appeals to you and perhaps stimulates your imagination in an enthusiastic way, we felt it would make a great title for this new section of the site. We hope you enjoy this weeks’ selections… Image: ©…
