Photobooks of 2017: Laurence Vecten
Bryan Schutmaat – Good Goddamn
Bryan Schutmaat depicts rural America as I imagine it : bad boy, trucks, mud, beers, wood, but in a very soft way, showing all his respect and friendship to the main character before he was arrested.
Jamie Hawkesworth – Preston Bus Station
The Preston pictures echo in my mind since the zine publication by Preston is my Paris back in 2010. Very exciting to see that the project evolved, and Hawkesworth went back to Preston. New photographs are as good as the one originally published in the zine and the purpose of the whole project goes much further than mere portraiture.
Paul Gorman – The Story of The Face
No words needed for this one, just can’t wait to hold the bible in my hands.
Yusuke Tamatani – Into the Light
Photographs taken using an infrared camera, offering a total different sight of the city, and its the streets and inhabitants. Page by page, the reader gets used to the dark pages (absolute and deep black on matte paper), to this nocturnal vision, and enters the night.
Larry Sultan – Pictures From Home
This book has always been in my personal top 5, it’s all about family, which is a main topic in my life too. So I am very happy that it is revisited and available again.
Mike Mandel – People in Cars
In the 70s, cars were family members, and people were still surprised and amused at being photographed.
Grégoire Eloy – Dear FairYs
Photographs were shot during a 3 months artist residency on the islands of Guernsey and Sark. Eloy took pictures every day, of the same walk. Book is not binded, allowing the reader to reconstruct it the way he wants, and transform it to a large poster.
Jordan Sullivan – Death Valley, or the Divine Nothing,
The book is as soft as the photographs, pure, and full of visual poetry.
Gregory Bojorquez – Walls & Bridges
Part of the Little Big Man minis series. East Los Angeles from the very inside.
Laurence Vecten works as a freelance photo editor for French press (mainly Le Monde, and Papiers/France Culture). She shares her photobook collection as it grows through the website One Year of Books. Every year she publishs a calendar gathering photographers, proceeds from the sales are donated to charitable organizations. The 2018 calendar is One Year for Earth. Since 2016, Russet Lederman, Yoko Sawada, and Laurence have published books under the name The Gould Collection.
Images: top – Jamie Hawkesworth – Preston Bus Station, below – Larry Sultan – Pictures From Home, Yusuke Yametani – Into The Light
