Aperture Priority
Everyone is a photographer. With smartphones, we all possess digital photo rolls that run thousands of images deep. Thanks to social media, we can be quick to share, as well. Together, this means a slew of accessories that actually aid camera phone captures. That said, nothing makes a photo better than understanding what goes into a good frame. Fortunately, there’s a beautiful history to tap into by way of books. And, of course, there are so many of us out there shooting on cameras—whether film or digital. Our Aperture Priority Gift Guide aims to appeal to everybody—from the semi-professional photographer to the smartphone user and everybody between.
Hero image courtesy of Josh Rubin
Reporter Jacket
Reporter Jacket
The AETHER x Leica Reporter Jacket is a meticulously designed piece tailored for photographers who value both functionality and refined style. This limited-edition outerwear celebrates the art of photography while addressing practical needs in the field. Inspired by Leica’s Reporter series cameras, it’s rendered in a distinctive army green and features waxed cotton construction for water resistance, seam-sealed finishes and thoughtfully placed vents. Clever design details include a collar pocket for SD cards, internal battery slots (that also fit rolls of film) and large, soft-lined pockets capable of holding a camera or lens. From a tablet-sized back pocket to the detachable microfiber cleaning cloth, so many aspects of field photography are considered. Guided by input from four top Leica photographers, this jacket blends AETHER’s rugged elegance with Leica’s precision. Available in an exclusive run of 125 pieces, it’s available at AETHER stores and online.
Added: October 2024
This product is sold by AETHER + Leica
2TB T9 Drive
2TB T9 Drive
Samsung’s T9 2TB portable drive is engineered for speed and endurance, offering read and write speeds of up to 2,000 MB/s that are perfect for photographers and videographers on the go. Its advanced thermal solution ensures the drive stays cool even during intense use, making it ideal for heavy-duty applications across a variety of devices—desktops, cameras, gaming consoles and more. It supports Ultra High Resolution video recording, including 4K 60fps and ProRes 4K on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, catering to the demands of professional filmmakers and gamers alike.
Added: August 2024
This product is sold by Samsung
VISITORS
VISITORS
Adam Abdalla, a friend of CH, loves wrestling, and his latest book project documents a “death match” wrestling show at Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall in October 2023, the first show created by an American independent wrestling company (Game Changer Wrestling). It featured 20 wrestlers and referees from the US and Mexico. Adam felt there wasn’t enough storytelling in previous efforts, so he recruited his photographer friend Nick Karp to document the event. This limited-edition book of 1,000 copies features 200 pages with images both behind-the-scenes as well as in the ring, and is being shown during NY Art week (28 April – 5 May 2024). The photographs capture, in graphic detail and with a sense of primal and theatrical expression, this subculture of wrestling. Now available for pre-orders.
All photographs by Nick Karp (they have been cropped for our square format)
Added: April 2024
This product is sold by Orange Crush Art
Oculus Earrings
Oculus Earrings
Artist Jiro Kamata makes art and jewelry from used camera lenses. The Oculus collection features a pair of earrings in 18k with matching optical lenses. From a ring to his larger art works, each shares a story of what the lenses saw in their past lives and creates a new way for us to appreciate them. Price is in Australian $ (approximately US $560)
Added: March 2024
Available from Funaki gallery
Auto-Tracking Stand Pro with DockKit
Auto-Tracking Stand Pro with DockKit
Whether you’re live-streaming or on a video call, Belkin’s Auto-Tracking Stand Pro with DockKit makes it easy to keep the camera on you while you are demonstrating, presenting, or doing anything where having a gadget follow your movement is helpful.
Added: March 2024
This product is sold by Belkin
MX Brio Webcam
MX Brio Webcam
Logitech’s latest webcam features a larger sensor (which improves low-light performance) and an in-house designed lens, delivering ultra HD 4K resolution in a sleek, attractive package. Image detail is more than twice the resolution of the previous generation. If you care about your video you can adjust your color, light, ISO, shutter speed and more, and if you care about how you sound the MX Brio features two “beamforming” mics that deliver clear sound even when you are in a noisy environment. You can tilt it to show things on your desktop, which is handy. And when you desire privacy you simply rotate the large shutter wheel to physically close the camera’s view.
Added: March 2024
This product is sold by Logitech
Twilight
Twilight
Photographer Arthur Drooker has captured our attention for years. His latest book, Twilight, features a colorful, resonant series of twilight images shot at The Sea Ranch in Northern California over a series of months. This peaceful meditation feels particularly good this year, and is a visually compelling break from the increasing complexity of the world.
Added: November 2023
This product is sold by Arthur Drooker
i-Type Retinex Film
i-Type Retinex Film
Polaroid’s latest special edition film, Round Frame Retinex, is a tribute to founder Edwin Land’s Retinex Theory, which explores how colors are perceived in relation to their surroundings. This film accentuates the phenomenon by framing an image with bold color and pattern to create a unique visual experience. Sold in a double pack edition, there are 10 distinct frame designs that magnify the interplay of colors, with each photograph celebrating the magic of color perception.
Sample images by Francesco Sambati, Courtesy of Polaroid
Added: October 2023
This product is sold by Polaroid
Mobile Tripod
Mobile Tripod
Peak Design is known for their meticulous, design-is-in-the-details approach, and their Mobile Tripod reaffirms that. Designed by the company’s tripod engineering team, it meets most needs for your phone—using as a stand for calls or video conferencing, or in tripod mode horizontally or vertically. If you have a later series iPhone with MagSafe it makes it even more convenient.
Added: July 2023
This product is sold by Peak Design
Xerophile: Cactus Photographs from Expeditions of the Obsessed
Xerophile: Cactus Photographs from Expeditions of the Obsessed
From LA-based creative collective Cactus Store, an updated version of the original Xerophile: Cactus Photographs from Expeditions of the Obsessed includes new archival imagery, that spans 80 years, alongside expanded notes. Cacti surviving the snow-capped mountains of Bolivia, succulents that grow in lava in the Galapagos Islands, a two-leaf plant that has lived for a millennia: these fascinating photos and more complete this stunning collection.
Added: January 2023
This product is sold by Ten Speed Press
Stanchion Annual Subscription
Stanchion Annual Subscription
Black and white photography, poetry, flash fiction, art and more populate Stanchion, a quarterly zine produced, edited and published by Jeff Bogle. An annual subscription includes all four editions of their gorgeous publication—printed on thick, uncoated A5 paper—as well as an exclusive bonus issue, making for an elegant and evocative gift for literary and artful minds.
Added: November 2022
This product is sold by Stanchion
We Were Here: Sexuality, Photography, and Cultural Difference
We Were Here: Sexuality, Photography, and Cultural Difference
India-born, Canada-raised and UK-based photographer Sunil Gupta has spent most of his career taking pictures of queer subjects, wielding his camera as a weapon for liberation. He shares some of his influential images and explorations of queerness, post-colonialism and activism in We Were Here: Sexuality, Photography, and Cultural Difference. Spanning 192 pages and including 26 images, the volume features Gupta’s keen essays on homosexuality in India, the AIDs crisis and the Black Arts Movement, capturing the practices and enduring power of resistance.
Added: November 2022
This product is sold by Aperture
Nothing Left but Healing
Nothing Left but Healing
A 71-person group book celebrating Pomegranate Press—a Richmond, Virginia-based independent publishing house for contemporary photography, writing and more—Nothing Left but Healing features a plethora of different pieces across its 150 pages. Within the smyth-sewn book are alluring portraits, microphotography, landscapes and more enchanting works.
Added: November 2022
This product is sold by Pomegranate Press
Colour Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome
Colour Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome
Autochrome photography was the first commercially available form of color photography, pioneered by Auguste and Louis Lumière in the early 1900s. Historic and precious, many of these images are rarely seen today as exposure to light will cause them to fade. The book Colour Mania: Photographing the World in Autochrome, by curator Catlin Langford, offers unprecedented access to these images, presenting the digitized photographs from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s expansive collection while exploring the impact of photographic technology.
Added: November 2022
This product is sold by Thames and Hudson
June Newton Best Seller
June Newton Best Seller
David Owen’s new book, June Newton Best Seller, is the story of a floor manager at a regional department store. While it may seem her life is dull, it’s anything but. Filled with quirky diary confessionals and imaginary conversations with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Nicholas Cage, the book turns from an off-kilter journal to a rollercoaster of a story. It’s the publisher’s first foray into literary fiction, and has been illustrated and designed by Karla Jarvinen and Dominik Pollin.
Added: August 2022
This product is sold by IDEA
Acid House As It Happened
Acid House As It Happened
When London’s rave scene began in the late ’80s, it ignited a culture around uninhibited style, the Roland TB-303 synthesizer and blissful hedonism. More than wild revelry, the scene—dubbed acid house—became a meeting place for people across genders, sexualities, class and race. That unity is revealed in former The Times editor and photographer Dave Swindells’ book Acid House As It Happened. Swindells, who followed the scene from its infancy to today, chronicles the explosion of the subculture through photographs that show how acid house exposed people to new ideas and ways of being. Price is in Euros.
Added: July 2022
This product is sold by IDEA
The Only Woman
The Only Woman
A compelling reflection on history and culture, The Only Woman by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Immy Humes celebrates women in male-dominated fields while illustrating the absurdity (and perils) of tokenism. From 1860 to present day and across 20 countries, Humes spotlights pioneers and disruptors, re-contextualizing gender equality and paying tribute to famous and overlooked musicians, astronauts, railroad workers, sportspeople, politicians, activists and more.
Added: June 2022
This product is sold by Phaidon
Koreatown Dreaming
Koreatown Dreaming
The Covid-19 pandemic and gentrification have threatened small businesses and iconic establishments in LA’s Koreatown, as well as the livelihoods of many in the neighborhood. To document, commemorate and celebrate the area, photographer Emanuel Hahn composed Koreatown Dreaming, a photo book that comprises the stories of 40 small businesses and immigrants with poetry and essays by Katherine Yungmee Kim, Lisa Kwon, Cathy Park and Dumbfoundead. 10% of the book’s profits will be donated to Koreatown non-profits.
Added: June 2022
This product is sold by Emanuel Hahn
Havana Blues
Havana Blues
Pastel facades, vintage cars, Art Deco buildings and architectural travels, as well as a unique blend of African, French, Spanish and North American influences converse in Havana, Cuba—and, thus, in Pamela Ruiz’s photobook that honors the vibrant city. With over 200 exquisite images, Ruiz captures Cuba’s rich culture, self-determination and progress.
Added: June 2022
This product is sold by Assouline
Nadine Ijewere: Our Own Selves
Nadine Ijewere: Our Own Selves
London-born photographer Nadine Ijewere, the first Black woman photographer to shoot a cover for Vogue, explores beauty (while subverting traditional notions surrounding it) in her enchanting monograph Our Own Selves. Dreamy backgrounds, compelling compositions and vibrant hues suffuse this collection of her work, attesting to the vivid ways Ijewere celebrates people of color and breaks barriers.
Added: May 2022
This product is sold by Prestel Press
Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland
Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland
Esteemed photographer Annie Leibovitz’s first fashion book, Wonderland, transports viewers into the artist’s otherworldly, dramatic and intimate world of imagery. The book, a collection of works she shot mostly for Vogue, features a foreword by Anna Wintour as well as 350 photos, including many that have never been published and depict an array of notable figures like Serena Williams, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and more. More than a collection of fashion or photography, Wonderland captures Leibovitz’s ability as a compelling, visual storyteller.
Added: March 2022
This product is sold by PHAIDON
Hello Future
Hello Future
Within Abu Dhabi-born artist Farah Al Qasimi’s opulent images, greater postcolonial structures of power, increasing globalization and the Persian Gulf’s period of rapid change lurk. Hello Future, a 300-page monograph comprising Al Qasimi’s photographs, comprehensively reveals the artist’s exacting, vivid lens. Featuring a kiss-cut sticker dust jacket, mirror chrome hardcover designed by Studio Lin, an essay by Negar Azimi and conversation between Al Qasimi and artist Meriem Bennani, this book— visually and contextually—enthralls.
Added: February 2022
This product is sold by Capricious
I Can Make You Feel Good
I Can Make You Feel Good
I Can Make You Feel Good is the first monograph of filmmaker and photographer Tyler Mitchell and presents his vision for a Black utopia. Each page is full bleed, entirely subsumed by Mitchell’s loving photographs. Encompassing contributions by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Deborah Willis and Isolde Brielmaier, as well as Mitchell’s candy-colored palette, I Can Make You Feel Good reimagines the Black experience as one that’s characterized by pleasurable, leisurely moments of affirmation.
Added: January 2022
This product is sold by Prestel
Tengo un Dragón Dentro del Corazón
Tengo un Dragón Dentro del Corazón
Tender yet subversive, dreamy yet introspective, Tengo un Dragón Dentro del Corazón is the first book of self-taught photographer Carlota Guerrero’s enchanting imagery. The collection—which includes text by renowned collaborators and the artist herself—spans her early photographs of women in nature, her renowned work for Solange’s A Seat at the Table, visuals from her project documenting the transgender community in Cuba and more. Altogether, this young visionary’s monograph muses on the idea of gender, femininity, human connection, patterns and the Golden Ratio.
Added: January 2022
This product is sold by Prestel
TOILETPAPER Calendar
TOILETPAPER Calendar
The 2022 TOILETPAPER calendar offers all the surreal, bold and sultry imagery fans of artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari’s magazine are accustomed to. This year’s food theme incorporates everything from chicken drumstick microphones to women sitting on fruit tarts—placing this calendar somewhere between ’70s cookbook and kitsch pin-ups. Juicy, glossy and off-kilter, this is a playful way to keep track of your days.
Added: November 2021
This product is sold by TOILETPAPER