Each year since 2012, the Awards recognize the best photo books published during the year, in three categories: : First Photobook, Photobook of the Year, Photography catalogue of the year. The winner of the First PhotoBook Award will receive a $ 10,000 prize.
35 works have been nominated among more than 700 books submitted following an international call for entries, by a shortlist jury gathered in September, 2020 in New York, composed of Joshua Chuang (associate director for art, prints, and photographs, New York Public Library), Lesley A. Martin (creative director, Aperture), Susan Meiselas (president, Magnum Foundation), Sarah Meister (curator of photography, MoMA), and Oluremi C. Onabanjo (Independent Curator).
20 books compete for the First Photobook category, 10 for the Photobook of the Year, and 5 for the Photography catalogue of the year.
The Final Jury is composed by Damarice Amao, (photo-historian and curator, Centre Pompidou), Lucy Conticello (director of photography, M le Monde), Laurel Parker (founder and artistic director of Laurel Parker Book studio ) Nicolas Poillot (creative director and image consultant) and Stéphanie Solinas (artist).
The exhibition of the 35 nominated books will be accompanied by an installation dedicated to the PhotoBook Review, No. 18, with guest editor Deborah Willis, African-American artist, author and curator, pioneer of cultural studies. The bi-annual review, dedicated to the photographic book in all its forms, will be offered during the exhibition.
