It is not necessary to have words in a photobook – you can just have images in it, or you can write an essay in the front – it’s up to you. However, the content of the photobook should sustain the interest in wanting to delve further into the book.
William Henry Fox-Talbot’s book ‘The Pencil of Nature’ was not originally produced as a book – it came as a series of images that you bound as a book yourself.
It was an early photobook, but wasn’t published. It is inconsistent and has no narrative.
Werner Graff’s ‘Es Kommt der neue Fotograf! was published in 1929 and was a hybridisation of what is a photo and what is a graphic image.
‘An American Exodus’ by Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor has an inconsistent page layout which varies the relationships between images and text, but there is a narrative in the book – it has its highs and lows.
‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank contains lots of white space which let the images ‘breathe’. I think I may do this (not ‘white’ though).
Hiromix’s ‘Girls Blue: Rockin On’ of 1966 is more of an event containing foldouts, etc.