The standout images from Paris Photo 2025

The 28th edition of Paris Photo has now opened its doors, filling the magnificent Grand Palais this weekend (13-16 November) with work by some of the world’s most extraordinary photographers. From the Main sector, showcasing historical masters like Sally Mann, Irving Penn, Lisette Model and Larry Clark alongside contemporary voices, to the Digital sector, pushing the boundaries into AI, blockchain, and virtual forms of image-making, we’re reminded that photography is evolving rapidly.

The Voices sector explores two rich themes of landscape and kinship. It brings together artists reflecting on territory, memory, relationships and belonging. The Emergence section on the first-floor balcony gives space to bold new talent from around the world, featuring 20 solo projects spanning multiple geographies and perspectives. The balcony also houses the incredible Books sector, featuring 43 publishers from 17 countries, with everything from indies such as Witty Books to big names like Aperture, and antiquarian sellers offering treasured collectables (like original copies of Provoke and other rarities). In a word, the fair is vast. So here are just a very few highlights from among the 122 exhibitors at this year’s Paris Photo…

Don’t miss Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223), showing at Stieglitz 19’s booth and debuting his new photo book Amour Défendu (Forbidden Love) (Akio Nagasawa Publishing). Combining casual immediacy with masterful, deliberate composition, exhibitionism with introspection, Zhipeng’s portraits of friends, lovers, fleeting strangers and flowers are intensely sensual and vividly beautiful. Amour Défendu captures random encounters shot across the streets, parks, rooftops, riverbanks, bridges, and flower markets of Paris in 2023 using thousands of rolls of film – in his own words, the book “continues my exploration of intimate moments, youth, and the hidden poetry of love and life –  a visual diary of forbidden loves and fleeting freedoms”.

Daniel Arnold’s pictures are unfailingly life-affirming. The New York-based photographer has an unmatched eye for those quite magical moments that underscore the absurdity, the beauty and the sheer oddness of humanity. As well as showing at the Kominek-Gallery booth, he’s also launching his new photo book, You Are What You Do (published by Loose Joints) – a compendium of chaos, comedy and romance on the streets of New York. 

Specialising in Japanese postwar artists, Akio Nagasawa Gallery’s booth in the Main sector features an array of incredible photographers. Expect to encounter masters such as Daido Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Sakiko Nomura and Takay.

In the Emergence sector, South African photographer Sibusiso Bheka documents the difficult legacy of apartheid and violence while also celebrating the beautiful, sometimes surreal, moments of life in the township of Thokoza. There’s a cinematic, striking, and slightly unreal quality to his nighttime photography that recalls Todd Hido’s similarly atmospheric, almost sci-fi landscapes. 

Director Jim Jarmusch was the special guest of Paris Photo 2024, curating a special selection of work from across the fair inspired by his love of surrealism. This year, he returns to the fair with a selection of his own work, on display at Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière (alongside James Barnor, Martin Parr and Lee Shulman). His own small-scale photographic assemblages also have a feel of the surreal, with intriguing, slightly disturbing back and white portraits roughly mounted in cardboard. 

Accra-based Ghanaian photographer and filmmaker Carlos Idun-Tawiah, showing at Alta gallery’s booth, creates poignant portraits drawing deeply on local everyday life with an emphasis on universal themes like youth, family, faith and community. This solo exhibition, I’ll Be Here to Remind You, marks the 28-year-old’s Paris Photo debut. 

Widely considered one of the most daring war photographers of her day, Marie-Laure de Decker’s portraits of 20th-century conflicts are characterised by their deeply humanistic approach and the dignity with which she captures her subjects. You’ll find her remarkable 1970s Vietnam pictures on display at the Anne-Laure Buffard gallery, alongside her memorable, embelmatic self-portraits.

Paris Photo is running from 13-16 November 2025 at the Grand Palais in Paris.