Everything feels like a fresh start in springtime. As the sweet smells of freshly cut grass, honeysuckle and an imminent thunderstorm get you going, there’s no better time to reflect, realign and reinvent yourself.

We recommend you take a similar approach to your TBR list, because spring reads should always lean into the new. On that note, we’ve curated a stack of fresh-off-the-press photo books – complete with erotica, flora and more – which embody the spirit of the season.

DAVID BRANDON GEETING, THE MARBLE

Imagine this: the sun is out, your legs are sprawled upon the gingham picnic cloth and your book is open. David Brandon Geeting’s new book opens with such a scene: “I was in a park in Queens, sitting in the grass looking out at the water in the distance,” writes musician Caroline Polachek in her foreword. What follows is a vision of the world through the POV of an ant – the first, and probably last, of its kind. Geeting’s book is impossible to sum up, but it seems to capture something fundamental about the human connection to nature. It’s weird, magical, playful, questing, confusing and often challenging. But then again, how dare you do something freaky with content and structure!

The Marble by David Brandon Geeting is published by TBW Books, and available here.

SMOKING HOT HORSES

Celebrate the year of the horse with this red-hot zine showcasing the curious history of equines in advertising. Capturing the attention of consumers across fashion, cigarettes, alcohol and cars, these high-end campaigns seem to leverage themes of ambition, luxury and freedom. The risograph printing lends an expected twist to what would have otherwise been glossy spreads, while the bookmark is appropriately finished off with a tassel.

Smoking Hot Horses is published by Hato Press, and available here.

JULIA & VINCENT, EROTISH 2

A book you should judge by its cover is Julia and Vincent’s new X-rated entry, already a clear frontrunner as the hottest book of 2026. It comes four years after the first volume, and is totally worth the wait. The hazy, kitschy world of 80s glamour has been swapped out for the slicker, more cinematic world of the noughties, where sexual ecstasy feels corrupted, depraved and even perverse. The French duo really know the power of erotic imagery, confronting, complicating and exaggerating it with contradictory concepts such as beauty and the mundane, desire and distaste. 

Erotish 2 by Julia & Vincent is published by Patrick Remy Studio, and available here.

INEZ & VINOODH, CAN LOVE BE A PHOTOGRAPH

From one power couple to another, this delectable book is published on the occasion of Inez & Vinoodh’s epic exhibition at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague. Audaciously designed – with a translucent jacket, booklet and enclosed poster – and packed with a heap of interesting texts, it does a fantastic job surveying the duo’s endlessly experimental work across art and fashion. For all their fantastic, reality-spinning visions, Inez & Vinoodh always manage to retain a very human way of telling stories. At its heart, the book is a statement on their creative partnership and a manifestation of their love – indeed reminding us of the emphatic answer to the title’s question.

Can Love Be a Photograph by Inez & Vinoodh is published by Hannibal Books, and available here.

HELMUT NEWTON, ONE-OFF

Phaidon have faithfully reproduced the one-off photo album Helmut Newton made with friend Gert Elfering in 1999, and it’s a beauty. In Elfering’s insightful interview with Matthias Harder, he discusses the making of the book in Miami – he glued the prints while Newton annotated and told stories. The (often hard-to-read) scribbles certainly add to the book’s immersion, while the printing of the images uncropped and in their original size offers a new view of iconic images that are so embedded into our visual culture. There’s a good dose of unseen works too. It’s a must for anyone interested in the creative workings of the German lensman, not to mention his erotic obsessions.

One-Off by Helmut Newton, with an introduction by Philippe Garner, interview between Gert Elfering and Matthias Harder and collector's statement by Nicola Erni, is published by Phaidon, and available here.

TAKASHI HOMMA, THIS IS NOT MY CAT

Understated and quotidian, this lovely little title by Takashi Homma tails his cat around his tiny Tokyo apartment, coaxing out its sweet inner life. It doesn’t fawn over the photographer, nor debase itself for his affections or attention. Independent, enigmatic, implacably other, it’s its mystery that intrigues. And by the end, the book’s title makes total sense. Homma’s sentiment is that it’s actually cats who tame us, and we who live in their world. In order for us to accommodate the imaginations of cats in our stories, we must stretch – or surrender – the limits of our own.

This Is Not My Cat by Takashi Homma is published by Nieves and Perimeter Editions, and available here.

SAKIKO NOMURA, LIRIO

Designed and edited by master bookbinder Satoru Machiguchi, this stunning, evocative hardback features photographs Sakiko Nomura took in Spain, and translates to “lily”, a flower steeped in Catholic symbolism for its connections to purity and rebirth. Nomura’s photography renders just-about-visible the entanglements between identity, sensuality and solitude with remarkable emotional depth, sensitivity and artistry. The very act of turning these pages feels like the slow letting in of light through a drawn curtain. It separates the dream and waking worlds, but which side we’re on is never clear. As a side note, don’t miss the publisher’s new Mika Ninagawa book about cherry blossom – a solid shout for spring.

Lirio by Sakiko Nomura is published by Bookshop M, and available here.

KENTA COBAYASHI AND TYRONE WILLIAMS, FLOWERS

In case you fancy the polar opposite interpretation of flora, here it is. This jacked-up trip of a book is a collaboration between Tyrone Williams and Kenta Cobayashi, the latter known for his wild experimentations and distinct brand of photo-graffiti. While these eye-watering visuals are heightened through the use of AI, they never lose focus on the subject matter at hand, and retain a sense of texture and depth. In fact, you could even describe them as painterly. The book proposes a bold new language and potential for digital photographic technology. A kind of out with the old, in with the new.

Flowers by Kenta Cobayashi and Tyrone Williams is published by Photobook Daydream Editions, and available here.