Ben Harman, Director of Stills: Centre for Photography in Edinburgh, speaks to Craig Atkinson from Café Royal Books.

This episode was recorded to coincide with the exhibition CAFÉ ROYAL BOOKS at Stills which ran from 10 November 2023 to 10 February 2024.

Craig Atkinson is an artist and lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. In 2005 he founded Café Royal Books and since 2012 he has been producing weekly publications on documentary photography, linked to Britain and Ireland, in an accessible and affordable zine format. Now spanning more than 600 issues, Café Royal Books has built-up a large, unique printed archive of documentary photography with broad appeal for its photographic, social and historic interest. Amongst those that collect Café Royal Books publications are universities and collections including: MoMA, New York; Tate; and the V&A, London. The exhibition, ‘Café Royal Books: Documentary, Zines and Subversion,’ was held at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol in 2022 and in the same year, Café Royal Books received the Royal Photographic Society Award for Photographic Publishing. 

www.caferoyalbooks.com

@caferoyalbooks (Instagram)

Episode music by Dom Mino’