Manchester 1970s - John Bulmer

Manchester 1970s - John Bulmer - Café Royal Books

"John Bulmer was a pioneer of colour photography in the early 1960’s working for the Sunday Times Magazine from the very first issue till the 1970’s

He was brought up in Herefordshire, became a passionate photographer, and when he went to study engineering at Cambridge continued taking photographs- first for the University newspaper Varsity and then for Image, a picture magazine that he co-founded. 

He soon started shooting stories for Town Magazine, a new fashion magazine that became well known for good photography, using others such as Terrence Donovan, David Bailey and Don McCullin.  John Bulmer did many groundbreaking stories for them including; The Black Country, Nelson, The North, as well as overseas stories in South America, Africa, New Guinea and Indonesia.

The Sunday Times then produced the first of the Colour Supplements, later copied by all the newspapers. John Bulmer shared the cover of the first issue with David Bailey- a picture of a footballer he took surrounded by pictures of Jean Shrimpton’s armpit!  This was a small start but John soon had a contract to shoot sixty pages a year, and travelled to nearly 100 countries on their behalf." 

• 36 pages
• printed in the UK
• staple bound
• 14cm x 20cm

About Café Royal Books:

"Café Royal Books is the idea of Craig Atkinson, an artist and lecturer. Our first title was published in 2005.

Craig wanted to create a way to make artwork accessible to a wider audience. The solution needed to be small, functional, open to collaboration, affordable, and work independently of galleries. These ideas remain at the heart of what we do.

We’re a small family-run publisher based in England, next to the woodland, dunes, and windswept beaches of the North West coast — we’re always inspired by the vastness, calm and energy of this environment. 

We make weekly publications, focussing on documentary photography linked to Britain and Ireland, printed and bound locally by a small 170 year old printing company. Libraries and museums around the world collect the books, so the work will remain preserved and accessible for many years. Our books don’t need batteries, or screens. We hope they will be used, create conversation and be passed down through family generations."

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