INTERVIEW
A Punch to the Stomach
Making photobooks you can feel. Plus, what to expect at my upcoming workshop, “Paper Punch: Editing Your Photobook.”
By Tiago Casanova
Tiago Casanova
I made my first photobook 15 years ago, thinking of it as a portable exhibition. Since then, I’ve helped shape hundreds of photobooks, whether published by XYZ Books, museums, and institutions or self-published by the artists.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that making a photobook is a fascinating contradiction. It requires the analytic mindset of someone constantly trying to organize, edit, and give structure to ideas while embracing the ambiguity and creativity that photography carries. For me, a photobook is where these two ways of thinking meet.
Perhaps that’s also why I approach book making much like architecture, drawing on my background as an architect, where every decision from sequencing to design and paper, binding, and materials should serve this concept.
The book isn’t simply a container for photographs. It’s part of the work itself. I see every photobook as a balance between structure and experimentation, and between precision and intuition.
At the “Paper Punch” workshop, we’ll ask some of the questions that are often overlooked, such as, “Why does the world need your photobook?”
We’ll work together to refine your ideas, challenge our assumptions and build a book where every decision has a purpose. We’ll explore editing, sequencing, design, materials, production, and publishing, not as separate disciplines but as part of a single creative process. This won’t be about vanity publishing or self promotion. We want your book to feel like a punch in the stomach.
Tiago Casanova will be leading the workshop “Paper Punch: Editing Your Photobook” October 5–9, 2026, in Santorini. Applications are due by August 20, 2026. Apply here.