Photography enthusiasts have five exceptional new books to discover this October 2025, each offering unique perspectives that capture different aspects of our world. These carefully selected publications showcase the work of AFP photographers covering current events, Wildlife Photographer of the Year award winners, Finnish master Pentti Sammallahti in a Photo Poche collection reissue, Simon Vansteenwinckel's immersive documentation of Lakota tribes in the northern United States, and Corentin Fohlen's intimate portraits of contemporary personalities.
Corentin Fohlen's "Look Here to See" marks a significant departure from his years covering breaking news as he turns his lens toward portraiture. After extensive experience in photojournalism, Fohlen explores the intricate relationship between photographer and subject through approximately 60 portraits of notable personalities, all commissioned for press publications. "For a portrait, the simpler it appears, the more complex the research," he writes, emphasizing the extensive construction and intuition required for each image.
The book features a thoughtful preface by Hervé Le Tellier, winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt, who writes, "No one has to pose other than in the action imposed by their profession." Yet Fohlen manages to reveal his subjects differently, in spaces where their personalities take center stage. This isn't simply a gallery of portraits, but rather a book about perspective – both that of the photographer and those he photographs. The title itself comes from the phrase Fohlen uses to direct his subjects' gaze during shoots. Published by Light Motiv, the 160-page softcover book (17 x 23.5 cm) retails for €29.
"In the Shadows" by Simon Vansteenwinckel, published by lamaindonne, presents what's described as a "documentary visual essay." From the opening pages, almost desert-like landscapes unfold in stark black and white with cinematic framing that resembles film sequences, building toward the appearance of riders on horseback. Each year in the northern United States, Lakota tribes gather and traverse more than 450 kilometers on horseback over approximately fifteen days.
Confined to reservations by the American government and forced to live in precarious conditions, members of the Lakota tribes make this ride both a liberation movement and salvaging memory work. They follow the traces of Chief Big Foot's tribe, massacred at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. Vansteenwinckel's photographic series goes against typical representations of Native American reservations in the United States. His landscapes, group portraits, and individual shots completely break from stereotypes and conventional representation approaches.
All photographs demonstrate great dignity and gentleness, perfectly honoring this emancipatory spiritual and memorial journey. A portion of the book's royalties will go directly to the Lakota Indians. The hardcover edition spans 224 pages (22.4 x 29.5 cm) and costs €46.
"Photographers' Perspectives 2024-2025" sees Agence France-Presse publish a distinctive work that goes against typical retrospectives. This beautiful collective book gathers unprecedented images created between 2024 and 2025 by AFP photojournalists. The powerful and sensitive shots reveal our era in all its complexity – climate issues, social struggles, conflicts, political upheavals. "At a time when generative AI can create completely fabricated images with striking realism, this book forcefully reminds us that the photoreporter's perspective is irreplaceable," indicate Stéphane Arnaud, Éric Baradat, and Stéphanie Garcia from AFP.
The sober and elegant layout centers the image, with captions relegated to the book's end, showing the image before the context in which it was taken. "Photographers' Perspectives" isn't a yearbook but a manifesto of contemporary photojournalism – a tribute to the work of nearly 300 AFP photographers who serve as witnesses to the world and craftsmen of reality. The softcover edition contains 160 pages (21 x 29.7 cm) and sells for €29.
"Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025" compiles the most beautiful images awarded in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 competition, organized by London's Natural History Museum. It presents not only winning images but also a selection of 100 exceptional photographs chosen from more than 60,000 entries from 113 countries for this 61st edition.
At the book's heart lies "Ghost Town Visitor" by South African photographer Wim van den Heever, selected as the year's grand image. It shows a brown hyena wandering through the ruins of an abandoned mining town in Namibia. Both mysterious and striking, this image illustrates nature's resilience in spaces abandoned by humans. The book also accompanies the international traveling exhibition organized by the museum.
This 2025 edition distinguishes itself by integrating an intact biodiversity index, allowing evaluation of the ecological state of photographed regions. Overall, "Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025" constitutes a visual tribute to the beauty, fragility, and power of the wild world – a work that marries aesthetics, emotion, science, and commitment to nature. Published by Biotope Éditions, the hardcover book spans 160 pages (25 x 25 cm) and costs €34.
The Photo Poche collection publishes a new edition of its work dedicated to Pentti Sammallahti. Born in 1950, this Helsinki native discovered photography at age 13 and presented his first solo exhibition at just 20. His photographic practice is characterized by numerous travels through vast, often remote territories. But unlike many contemporaries, Sammallahti doesn't seek to deliver solar images with striking contrasts.
Instead, monochrome landscapes unfold across two long seasons. Persistent winters and fleeting summers succeed each other throughout the pages. Human presence, sometimes shown, often suggested, serves more to introduce animal silhouettes – enigmatic and silent presences. The 144 pages of this (new) Photo Poche can be browsed slowly, progressively. Like something from a fable, Sammallahti's photos seem to emerge from silence and present themselves to us. Published by Actes Sud, the softcover edition contains 144 pages (12.6 x 18.9 cm) and retails for €14.50.
