Fact: Instagram isn’t photography. Nor is TikTok. Every time I go to photo events, I always see nothing else but “cinematic style lighting” being shot by people who know nothing about cinema, storytelling, or what brands are really going for. I’d never buy a photo book of portraits shot by a random YouTuber — but the art that a respected career-photographer makes is much different. And that work, when compiled into a photo book, is something that speaks to someone in a timeless way. Photos made for Instagram look dated because they’re content designed for an algorithm. Good photography, on the other hand, isn’t. So if you’re ready to jump off the social media bandwagon then check out these incredible photo books of portrait photography.
How We Choose the Best Photo Books of Portrait Photography
- The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed in these roundups.
- If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
- When we test lenses, we’ve got various things in mind. First off, we consider who might want to buy the lens and what they might do with it. With that in mind, we try to tackle at least three genres of photography with that lens in a variety of situations. If the lens has weather resistance, then we’ll test it accordingly with a weather-resistant camera. We also test the autofocus of the lens in continuous mode, single mode, with exposure preview effects, without those effects, and then with all the major image quality parameters. These days, no one really makes a bad lens — but some are far better than others.
- In this specific roundup, we’re basing our findings on the reviews that we’ve done. We’re choosing a favorite, but we’re also giving photographers a bunch of others that they might like, depending on how they shoot.
The Best Photo Book of Portrait Photography for 2024: Mark Seliger Photographs
A photography book that we continue to come back to is Mark Seliger Photographs. It’s one of the only photo books that has images split down the middle at times, but that still looks really good. Mark’s images are an ocean of happiness that we all need to baptize ourselves in. This is what happens when a true artist connects their technical and artistic side to make images that are stunning beyond belief.
In our review, we state:
We’re here mostly to talk about the photographs. Throughout Mark Seliger Photographs, you’ll find images of the various celebrities that he’s photographed over the years. Some are still with us, while others aren’t. Many are easily recognizable. The book has a combination of black and white images along with vivid, sumptuous full-color photographs. If these were in a museum, you wouldn’t be able to touch them. But because they’re in a photo book, it’s easy to touch and feel the prints. They all feel the same, and the quality of the print itself has nothing very special vs something made in perhaps a darkroom or somewhere else. But the images are worth peering over for hours and hours.
For Others, These Might be the Best Photo Books of Portrait Photography
I mean, how can you beat Mark Seliger? Well, don’t worry. There are lots of other incredible photo books of portrait photography that we’ve reviewed and we approve of. Here are a few.
The Sartorialist India
In our review, we state:
When you crack open the book, you’re treated to a bit of an introduction and then get immediately into the images. You’ve probably seen some of these on Scott’s website or even his Instagram. But several others are ones that I’ve never seen before — and I’ve spent lots of time on Scott’s website researching and admiring the images for various reasons.
Lois Greenfield Moving Still
In our review, we said:
Her photography is something that has to be very carefully done. It takes the street dance idea that so many other photographers abide by and grabs it by the shoulders while yelling at it to do the photographs properly. I remember Lois telling me that not much post-production, if any, is done on the photographs. This amazes me even more. And it’s bound to amaze any photographer that picks this book up.
Gregory Crewdson
In our review, we said:
When you open up the book, you’ll be treated to a little bit of text in each section outlining and speaking about them all. Since this is a book, I wish that the text were a bit larger and easier to read. But the information is easily accessible. From there, you’ll dive into the pages. For the most part, each image has its own dedicated page and is placed on the upper half of each page. To really experience these images, you’ll need to hold the book close to you and look at the with diffused window lighting. The book should also be arched upwards slightly to make the light bathe over the soft matte sheen on the pages.
Using this Guide to the Best Photo Books of Portrait Photography
If you’re considering purchasing anything from this list, consider the following:
- All the product images and sample photos in these roundups are shot by our staff. In fact, we don’t talk about products at length in roundups like this unless we’ve done full reviews of them. But you can surely know that we’ve done all the research ourselves.
- We’d never recommend a product to you that we haven’t tested or that we really didn’t like. You can reference our linked reviews, for more information on this.
Tips on Choosing the Best Photo Books of Portrait Photography
We chose these as the best photo books of portrait photography looking for inspiration based on a variety of reasons. Part of that requires you to consider what these people are going through and what made them unique. They’re all making work that looks much different from one another. So here’s what you should consider when making a purchase.
- Do you need advice, inspiration, or ideas?
- Page through these books and actually read the text. We recommend doing that with the book slightly propped up and by diffused window lighting.
- Many of these books won our Editor’s Choice awards.