Theme
Jane Evelyn Atwood
Éric Franceschi
Bernard Plossu
Anne Geddes
Photo credit : cinq26

The Art of Photobooks

Edito

The history of photography is also a history of its publications. Since the medium's beginnings, books have played a crucial role in the circulation of images, the recognition of photographers and the shaping of their bodies of work. Through four documentaries dedicated to Jane Evelyn Atwood, Éric Franceschi, Bernard Plossu and Anne Geddes, this focus explores how publishing shapes photographs, their circulation and their place in collective memory.

From limited-edition prints to bestsellers, from news photography to rediscovered archives, these four careers reveal very different histories of the photobook. Yet they also raise a common question: who exercises control over images once they have been taken? Who selects them, who arranges them, who publishes them, and for whom? Each of these decisions contributes to shaping their artistic, documentary or commercial value.

  • 4 films
  • 1 h 32 min
  • Edito, 3 min read
Jane Evelyn Atwood | Around Pigalle - cover 16:9
movie category
27’
Jane Evelyn Atwood | Around Pigalle
France - 2019 fr en

Delving into the lives and streets of Pigalle through Atwood's eyes.

When Jane Evelyn Atwood set out to publish Pigalle People in 2018, nearly forty years had passed since she first photographed sex workers and transgender people in Paris in the late 1970s. In the meantime, the neighbourhoods had changed, as had attitudes towards the people she photographed. In Jane Evelyn Atwood | Around Pigalle, Thomas Goupille follows the photographer from the darkroom to the printing press, as this body of archival work takes shape as a book. The film's interest lies as much in the meticulous processes involved as in the questions raised by this belated publication. What does it mean to make public, several decades later, images born out of particular relationships and encounters? Here, the book becomes a space in which past and present inevitably confront one another.

And then goes... Meeting Eric Franceschi - cover 16:9
movie category
23’
And then goes... Meeting Eric Franceschi
France - 2012 fr en

Diving into the world of a renowned political photographer.

Éric Franceschi's career raises similar questions, this time in the context of press photography. For several decades, he photographed leading figures and behind-the-scenes moments in French political life. His images were produced in a setting where their value often depended on their newsworthiness, their ability to document an event or illustrate a story. Brought together in Et puis s'en vont..., they move beyond this original function. A detail that once seemed incidental can take on new significance. The book allows the photographer to reclaim control over images whose eventual use had long been beyond his hands. The documentary And then goes... Meeting Eric Franceschi thus explores the sometimes complex relationship between commissioned work, creative freedom and the recognition of a distinctive photographic voice.

Bernard Plossu | Snapshots - cover 16:9
15’
Bernard Plossu | Snapshots
France - 2012 fr en

Capturing the essence of everyday life through Plossu's lens.

For Bernard Plossu, the photobook is almost inseparable from the process of making photographs. With nearly 300 books published, he has built a body of work that is difficult to separate from the many editorial lives of his images. Some books emerge from a journey, others from a particular place, an encounter, or an unexpected juxtaposition of photographs taken years apart. This remarkable output suggests a different understanding of photographic work, one less concerned with creating a definitive body of images than with the possibility of continually revisiting, rearranging and recontextualising them. In Bernard Plossu | Snapshots, we discover this approach to photography, shaped by an attentiveness to circumstances and chance encounters. The sheer number of his publications extends a practice in which spontaneity and openness to the world play a central role.

Anne Geddes | Photographer - cover 16:9
26’
Anne Geddes | Photographer
France, Switzerland - 2018 en en

Behind the scenes of a meticulously crafted tableau that shaped the visual imagination of the 1990s.

In sharp contrast to this tradition of the photobook as an artistic medium stands the career of Anne Geddes. Her photographs of newborn babies, often incorporated into floral arrangements or carefully constructed settings, have achieved extraordinary international reach. Books, calendars and other printed materials helped establish her distinctive aesthetic in the popular imagination of the 1990s. This commercial success highlights the decisive role of publishing in building a photographer's visual identity and reputation. Anne Geddes | Photographer revisits the development of this visual world and the circumstances behind its success.

Documentaries about photography, and about the people who make it. 
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What you’ll find

Portraits of photographers, names everyone knows and others you’ll discover here. Films about street photography, war, fashion or portraiture, about printing and historical processes. About the trades of photography too. And then suggestions for going further, with Focuses, articles, interviews, bibliographies.

A small independent team

Documentaries about photography were rarely shown on television, and hardly at all on streaming platforms. We created The Darkroom Rumour to give them a place of their own. We are a small team, and we choose every film ourselves, with no school to defend.

Inspire your photography

In these films, you see photographers at work, in the field as well as in the darkroom. If you take pictures, you’ll often come away with an idea to try. If you simply like looking at images, you may start to see them differently.

How it works 

You can watch the films online, anywhere in the world, on a computer, tablet or phone, and on TV by mirroring your phone’s or computer’s screen. Every film is available in French and English, with no ads. New releases come out on Saturday or Sunday. The trial lasts 7 days, and if you stop before day 8, you pay nothing.

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Linked Articles

Jane Evelyn Atwood, a Free Photographer
Christine Delory-Momberger - portrait by Christine Delory-Momberger

Jane Evelyn Atwood, a Free Photographer

linked to Jane Evelyn Atwood | Around Pigalle

Jane Evelyn Atwood is an independent woman and photographer whose freedom has been forged both through her experiences and the struggles she wages in life to protect her creative space. But this freedom is tenuous. It must be regained with each act, each decision, each gesture and it requires unfail…

Bernard Plossu on Printing
Bernard Plossu - portrait by Bernard Plossu

Bernard Plossu on Printing

linked to The Workshop | The Fresson Process

Emmanuel Bacquet: Bernard Plossu, what part does printing play in your photographic writing?Bernard Plossu: If there's no print, there's no photo. That says it all! Of course printing is very important! But what I seek is a kind of "discreet normalcy", certainly not a too-striking print that darkens…

Further exploration

Selected bibliography

• Jane Evelyn Atwood, Pigalle People, 1978-1979, Le Bec en L'Air, 2018 (in French and English). Publisher · Libraries

• Éric Franceschi, Et puis s'en vont... Political Photographs, Parenthèses Éditions, 2007. Publisher · Libraries

• Bernard Plossu and Guillaume Geneste, Plossu, d'un livre à l'autre, Marval, 2026 (in French). Publisher · Libraries

• Anne Geddes, Down in the Garden, Headline, 1996.

• Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume I, Phaidon, 2004. Libraries

• Matt Johnston, Photobooks &: A Critical Companion to the Contemporary Medium, Onomatopee, 2021. Publisher · Libraries

Online

Jane Evelyn Atwood | Around Pigalle

• Interview with Jane Evelyn Atwood, Leica Oskar Barnack Award, 2017.

• Rencontres d'Arles : le Pigalle trans de Jane Evelyn Atwood, Le Monde, 2018 (in French, paid access).

And then goes... Meeting Eric Franceschi

• Entretien avec Eric Franceschi, Actuphoto, 2012 (in French).

Bernard Plossu | Snapshots

• Bernard Plossu on Movies and Mexico, Paula Kupfer, interview, Aperture, 2014.

• Les livres de Bernard Plossu, Marc Donnadieu, The Art Newspaper Édition française, 2026 (in French).

Anne Geddes | Photographer

• Anne Geddes: The Queen of Baby Photography, Phil Mistry, PetaPixel, 2023.

• 'We popped the baby in a flowerpot!' Anne Geddes on the beloved photos that made her famous, Morwenna Ferrier, The Guardian, 2025.

Photobooks

• What Does Photo Editing Look Like?, David Campany, Aperture, 2018.

• How to Produce a Photobook, Diane Smyth, Aperture, 2022.

• Aux origines de la pratique éditoriale de Robert Frank, Zoé Isle de Beauchaine, The Art Newspaper Édition française, 2025 (in French).

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The Focuses

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