Histories of the Photobook and the Contemporary Photobook in Spain
with Javier Ortiz-Echagüe and Celia Vega

The history of photography is a fascinating universe where images that form part of the collective imagination, fundamental photographers of our visual culture, legendary exhibitions and, also, a large stack of photobooks have come together. If we turn our attention to the history of photography produced in Spain, we find some essential titles, but what about contemporary photography? In this episode, we want to discover some current photobooks that are marking a turning point in the way we understand the static image.

Photos & Books: Stories of a Scopic Drive

The first podcast on photobooks in Spain

Written and hosted by Nieves Limón and Marta Martín
Produced by Fiebre Photobook
Recorded at La República Independiente de la Radio
Actividad subvencionada por @culturagob
Funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU

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Photobooks cited VISIT THE LIBRARY
Photobooks. Spain 1905-1977 Horacio Fernández
Photobooks. Spain 1905–1977 is a study of photobooks published in Spain during the 20th century. It contains monographic studies of thirty noteworthy publications, generously illustrated, as well as a prologue reviewing another hundred photobooks. Taken together, it represents a new and surprising chapter in the recent history of photography discovered in recent years through photobooks.
2014 EDITORIAL RM
Los últimos días de Franco vistos en TVE [The last days of Franco watched on TVE] Fernando Nuño
In 1975, two books are published by the editorial of Radio Television Española (RTVE). The order to do it was received by the photographer Fernando Nuño, who from television images, he composed the two books: Los últimos días de Franco vistos en TVE [The last days of Franco watched on TVE] and Los primeros días […]
1975 Departamento de publicaciones RTVE
Images à la sauvette Henri Cartier-Bresson
Published in 1952 by Verve, on the initiative of Tériade, it brings together photographs taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson during the first twenty years of his career. It is a monograph of the best of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work, published by an art publisher, with an original cover by Matisse.
1952 Éditions Verve
Transformations in Photobook Publishing in Spain (2008-2018) Celia Vega
The PhD thesis Transformations in PhotobookPublishing in Spain (2008-2018) analyses the conceptual and formal changes that have taken place in photobooks over the last decade. These transformation simply a departure from conventional and standardised models such as the catalogue or themonograph, in which the photographer’s intervention is kept to a minimum and conditioned by the […]
2020
Italia o Italia Federico Clavarino
I was born and raised in Italy, but I always felt like a stranger. It wasn’t until I moved abroad at the age of twenty that I began to notice the place, trying to figure out why everything seemed so familiar and yet so strange to me. That’s when I decided to travel around the […]
2014 Akina Books
The Spanish are coming Juan Peces
Austerity has hit Spain hard and arts funding has vanished – yet young Spanish photographers are taking the world by storm. Ricardo Cases, Carlos Spottorno, Óscar Monzón, Aleix Plademunt, Julián Barón and – especially – Cristina de Middel have published highly acclaimed photobooks, leading Martin Parr to comment on a “new generation of Spanish photographers […]
2014 The British Journal of Photography
Karma Oscar Monzón
In Karma, a project developed in Madrid between 2009 and 2013, Óscar Monzón focuses on the car as a means of transportation that is not entirely distinct from the person who inhabits it, for the vehicle is in itself a product of the wheel that endlessly spins inside us. Karma explores a range of unconscious human behaviours […]
2014 RVB Books y Dalpine
Tipos y trajes de España [Spain, Types and Costumes] José Ortiz Echagüe
Spain, Types and Costumes was the first series to be published in 1930, first in Germany and then in Spain by Editorial Espasa-Calpe, a publishing house that published twelve editions of the work until 1971. The aim of this series, in the words of Ortiz Echagüe himself, is to perpetuate in graphic documents that remain […]
1930 Espasa Calpe
Subida al cielo [Ascent into Heaven] Lúa Ribeira
Subida al cielo features five bodies of work by Galician photographer Lúa Ribeira made between 2016 and 2020: Subida al cielo, Las visiones, Aristócratas, La Jungla and Los afortunados [Ascent into Heaven, The Visions, Aristocrats, The Jungle and The Fortunate Ones]. In these five series, Ribeira approaches topics with a historical relation to documentary photography […]
2023 Dalpine
Los Sanfermines Ramón Masats
In 1957, Ramón Masats made a work that will mark a milestone in Spanish photography. This narration has stood the passage of time. Bulls, black and white, noise, folklore, music, people all over the place and some emphatic compositions make the images in this book true gems even for someone who looks at them without […]
1963 Espasa Calpe
Barcelona blanc i negre Xavier Miserachs
It consists of a series of photographs by Xavier Miserachs that chronicle the economic recovery of the city of Barcelona. The publishing house Aymà published the series in a photobook in 1964.
1964 Aymà
Portugal 1934
This work, conceived under the direction of António Ferro for the National Propaganda Secretariat (SPN), represents an important piece of political propaganda for the Portuguese Estado Novo. The book uses innovative elements with modernist aesthetics, influenced by the European avant-garde and constructivism, using visual resources in photomontage, cut-outs and typography. Some of the photographers hired […]
1934 S.P.N. (Secretariado Nacional de Propaganda)
Salazar na intimidade António Rosa Casaco
It is a propaganda book based on the private life of the Portuguese dictator Salazar. Javier Ortiz-Echagüe says: “It’s really surprising because the book was written by a secret police officer from Salazar’s police force, almost an espionage officer, but it tells the story of the dictator, who comes across as someone who is extremely […]
1954 Dr. Marjay
Enquêtes. Nouvelles formes de photographie documentaire Danièle Méaux
Some contemporary photographers conceive their works as investigations conducted in the field (or within archives), and the means of presentation they offer (books, websites or installations) tend to draw viewers into questioning reality. Their approaches thus mark a renewal of documentary photographic practices. The works of Lewis Baltz, Gabriele Basilico, John Davies, Emmanuel Pinard, Bertrand […]
2019 Filigranes Éditions
Verdigris / Ambergris Paul Graham
This pair of sibling books is centered on people scanning the infinite horizon as they look out over land (Verdigris) and sea (Ambergris). Interleaved with these contemplative portraits in the first volume are images of cherry blossoms and in the second images of the setting sun. These photographs are made respectively in a park overlooking […]
2024 Mack
Mother Paul Graham
Artists drawing or painting their mother has become iconic in art history—from Whistler through Freud, Cezanne, Hockney, Ingres, Gauguin or Durer, whose brutally honest portraits of his mother insisted that ‘Even the smallest wrinkles and veins must not be ignored’. Paul Graham’s first major body of work since 2014’s Does Yellow Run Forever? contains portraits […]
2019 Mack
O Livro da Patrícia David-Alexandre Guéniot
When photographer Patrícia Almeida passed away in November 2017, she left behind an unfinished book project about her ‘Personal History of Photography.’ Months earlier, she had begun collecting documents: examples she gave to her students, obsolete second-hand manuals, her first photographs. On the day of her death, the funeral director asked for a portrait for […]
2022 GHOST Editions
Ma Vie Va Changer
“For three years (2011-13), we have collected press clippings. The ‘Arab Spring’ at its peak; the arrival of the Troika (IMF, ECB, EU) in Greece, Portugal and Ireland; the earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan; and a bit everywhere in Europe and the USA, citizen movements against austerity policies in favour of the bailout of […]
2020 GHOST Editions
Screenwriters and presenters

Nieves Limón

Nieves Limón is Associate Professor of Foundations of Photography and Audiovisual Formats at the Faculty of Communication of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. Her teaching and research have focused on the theory and analysis of the photographic image for more than a decade. She also cultivates a continued interest in documentary audiovisual practices. She was awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize for her PhD thesis, “Photographic Self-Representation Strategies. The Case of Frida Kahlo” (2014), and has published extensively in the field of photography. Her publications, which stem from her work and research stays in various national and international institutions (including the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico, Sorbonne Université in Paris, Glasgow Caledonian University, Università degli Studi Roma Tre and Charles University in Prague), can be consulted via her ORCID profile. She has also sought to build bridges between academic knowledge and its transfer to broader social contexts, taking part in projects such as “Género y figura. Reivindicando a las mujeres fotógrafas”, contributing to photobook outreach (“Mirar de cerca. El fotolibro”, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía) and working on archive research or exhibition curating (Casa Azul–Frida Kahlo Museum, Sala Ricardo Ortega). She is Co-PI of the research group ComPublic (Public Communication: Power, Law and Message) at UCLM.

Marta Martín Núñez

Marta Martín Núñez is Associate Professor of Photography and Narrative at the Faculty of Human Sciences at Universitat Jaume I in Castellón, where she has developed a teaching and research career focused on contemporary Spanish photography, memory and visual narratives through the critical analysis of audiovisual discourse—topics on which she has published widely. She has been a resident at Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and has undertaken research stays at the Hasselblad Foundation (Gothenburg), Roehampton University (London), the National Library of Spain and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía through Universidad Complutense de Madrid, as well as at New York University. She has been principal investigator on several competitive research projects funded through public calls and has led the creation of the Photographic Memory Archive of the Spanish Civil War, a project that recovers, analyses and preserves photographic production published in contemporary photobooks of memory and postmemory. This work has also taken the form of the exhibition Ecos de la memoria. Fotolibros del presente at the Museu de Belles Arts de Castelló in 2023, which travelled to Barcelona in 2024 and to Montpellier in 2025, funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with Parliament and Democratic Memory. She is co-editor-in-chief of L’Atalante. Revista de Estudios Cinematográficos and director of LabCom at UJI.

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