In Paris: 2017 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards

Albert Elm’s What Sort of Life is This, Mathieu Asselin’s Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation and the group book project Amplitude No.1, which is edited by Nadya Sheremetova and includes photographers such as Irina Yulieva, Igor Samolet and Irina Ivannikova, have all made the shortlist for the prestigious First Photobook award in the 2017 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards. The PhotoBook of the Year shortlist includes Jim Goldberg’s The Last Son, Mark Neville’s Fancy Pictures, and Henk Wildschut’s Ville de Calais.
Established in 2012, the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards are divided into three categories – PhotoBook of the Year, First PhotoBook, and Photography Catalogue of the Year. The winners will be announced on 10 November at Paris Photo, and all the shortlisted and winning titles will be profiled in The PhotoBook Review and exhibited at Paris Photo, the Aperture Gallery in New York, and at other international venues.

From the book What Sort Of Life Is This © Albert Elm
From the book What Sort Of Life Is This © Albert Elm
The full shortlist for the First PhotoBook is: Mathieu Asselin, Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation; Zackary Canepari, REX; Teju Cole, Blind Spot; Sam Contis, Deep Springs; Debi Cornwall, Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay; Albert Elm, What Sort of Life Is This; Mary Frey, Reading Raymond Carver; Jenia Fridlyand, Entrance to Our Valley; Darren Harvey-Regan, The Erratics; Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen, Eyes as Big as Plates; Dawn Kim, Creation.IMG; Laura Larson, Hidden Mother; Feng Li, White Night; Cecil McDonald Jr, In the Company of Black; Virginie Rebetez, Out of the Blue; Claudius Schulze, State of Nature; Nadya Sheremetova, ed, Amplitude No.1; Senta Simond, Rayon Vert; Alnis Stakle, Melancholic Road; Mayumi Suzuki, The Restoration Will.
PhotoBook of the Year shortlist is: Anne Golaz, Corbeau; Jim Goldberg, The Last Son; Nicholas Muellner, In Most Tides an Island; Mark Neville, Fancy Pictures; Alison Rossiter, Expired Paper; Mike Mandel, Susan Meiselas, Bill Burke, and Lee Friedlander, Subscription Series No. 5; Dayanita Singh, Museum Bhavan; Carlos Spottorno and Guillermo Abril, La Grieta (The Crack); Erik van der Weijde, This Is Not My Book; Henk Wildschut, Ville de Calais.
The Photography Catalogue of the Year shortlist is: Brassaï: Graffiti, Le Langage du Mur, Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska; CLAP! 10×10 Contemporary Latin American Photobooks: 2000–2016, Olga Yatskevich, Russet Lederman, and Matthew Carson; Diary of a Leap Year, Rabith Mroué; Hans Eijkelboom: Photo Concepts 1970, Gabriele Conrath-Scholl, Wim van Sinderen, Gerrit Willems and Dieter Roelstraete; New Realities: Photography in the 19th Century, Mattie Boom, Hans Rooseboom.
In 1996, Monsanto introduced its first GMO seeds. This ensured that farmers could not save the seeds, essentially shifting the balance of power away from the farmers to corporations who now own about 80% of GM corn and 93% of the GM soy market. Now farmers not only have to buy the seeds from the corporations year after year, but they are also forced to comply with the rules and regulations embedded in the contracts, which are designed to put the farmers at a juridical disadvantage. Image shot in Van Buren, Indiana, 2013, from the series Monsanto®. A photographic investigation © Mathieu Asselin
From the series Monsanto®. A photographic investigation © Mathieu Asselin
The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards is judged by two separate juries – one which creates the shortlist, and another which picks out the winners. This year, the shortlist jury included: Gregory Halpern, winner of the 2016 PhotoBook of the Year Award with ZZYZX; Lesley A Martin, creative director of the Aperture Foundation book programme and publisher of The PhotoBook Review; Kathy Ryan, director of photography for The New York Times Magazine; Joel Smith, Richard L Menschel curator of photography at the Morgan Library & Museum; and Christoph Wiesner, artistic director of Paris Photo.
The shortlists were created over three days, from over 900 submitted books. “The task of the shortlist jury is essentially a curatorial one,” says Martin. “The selected books comprise an exhibition that showcases the incredible array of creativity and excellence taking place right now in contemporary photobook making.”
The winners of the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards will be announced at 1pm on 10 November. https://programme.parisphoto.com/en/photobook-awards.htm
Nadya Sheremetova, ed.
With Alexey Bogolepov, Margo Ovcharenko, Irina Ivannikova, Anastasia Tsayder, Igor Samolet, Yury Gudkov, Olya Ivanova, Irina Zadorozhnaia, Anastasia Tailakova, and Irina Yulieva.
Amplitude No.1
Publisher: FotoDepartament, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2017
Designed by Anton Lepashov
Nadya Sheremetova, ed.
With Alexey Bogolepov, Margo Ovcharenko, Irina Ivannikova, Anastasia Tsayder, Igor Samolet, Yury Gudkov, Olya Ivanova, Irina Zadorozhnaia, Anastasia Tailakova, and Irina Yulieva.
Amplitude No.1
Publisher: FotoDepartament, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2017
Designed by Anton Lepashov
Alnis Stakle
Melancholic Road
Self-published, Riga, Latvia, 2017
Designed by Alnis Stakle
Alnis Stakle
Melancholic Road
Self-published, Riga, Latvia, 2017
Designed by Alnis Stakle
Laura Larson
Hidden Mother
Publisher: Saint Lucy Books, Baltimore, 2017
Designed by Guenet Abraham
Laura Larson
Hidden Mother
Publisher: Saint Lucy Books, Baltimore, 2017
Designed by Guenet Abraham
Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen
Eyes as Big as Plates
Publisher: Forlaget Press, Oslo, 2017
Designed by Greger Ulf Nilson
Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen
Eyes as Big as Plates
Publisher: Forlaget Press, Oslo, 2017
Designed by Greger Ulf Nilson
Darren Harvey-Regan
The Erratics
Publisher: RVB Books, Paris, 2017
Designed by Zoé Aubry & Vincent Sauvaire
Darren Harvey-Regan
The Erratics
Publisher: RVB Books, Paris, 2017
Designed by Zoé Aubry & Vincent Sauvaire
Sam Contis
Deep Springs
Publisher: MACK, London, 2017
Designed by Sam Contis and Lewis Chaplin
Sam Contis
Deep Springs
Publisher: MACK, London, 2017
Designed by Sam Contis and Lewis Chaplin
Dawn Kim
Creation.IMG
Publisher: Self-published, Brooklyn, 2016
Designed by Dawn Kim
Dawn Kim
Creation.IMG
Publisher: Self-published, Brooklyn, 2016
Designed by Dawn Kim
Cecil McDonald Jr.
In the Company of Black
Publisher: Candor Arts, Chicago, 2017
Designed by Matt Austin
Cecil McDonald Jr.
In the Company of Black
Publisher: Candor Arts, Chicago, 2017
Designed by Matt Austin
Debi Cornwall
Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay
Publisher: Radius Books, Santa Fe, NM, 2017
Designed by David Chickey
Debi Cornwall
Welcome to Camp America, Inside Guantánamo Bay
Publisher: Radius Books, Santa Fe, NM, 2017
Designed by David Chickey
Teju Cole
Blind Spot
Publisher: Penguin Random House, New York, 2017
Designed by Alex Merto
Teju Cole
Blind Spot
Publisher: Penguin Random House, New York, 2017
Designed by Alex Merto
Diane Smyth

Diane Smyth is the editor of BJP, returning for a second stint on staff in 2023 - after 15 years on the team until 2019. As a freelancer, she has written for The Guardian, FT Weekend Magazine, Creative Review, Aperture, FOAM, Aesthetica and Apollo. She has also curated exhibitions for institutions such as The Photographers Gallery and Lianzhou Foto Festival. You can follow her on instagram @dismy