Interview with Greg Stewart of Kozu Books

Greg Stewart

Company Director, Photo book Publisher, Frustrated Photographer. I am the 4th generation of my Dads side of the family to work in Print. I have worked for my families high quality Printing company for the last 20 years and I have been Publishing Photo books for the last 5 years. I work closely with Photographers and Photo book Publishers from around the world and help them produce their Photo books to the highest possible standards.

I collect Cameras, Photo books, Vinyl and Urban Art and I enjoy Photography immensely when I get the opportunity. I love all things Print related, obsessed with accurate colour reproduction and have a real love for vintage Letterpress. Committed to printing in the most environmentally sustainable way and have been for over 20 years...

kozubooks.com

Charlotte Parkin

Head of Marketing & Sub Editor for On Landscape. Dabble in digital photography, open water swimmer, cooking buff & yogi.

Back in 2017, Doug Chinnery wrote an overview of contemporary publishing and the rise of the photo book. We catch up with Greg Stewart to find out more about what inspired him to set up Kozu books (a spin-off of his more general printing company), the projects that he's worked on and where he sees things going in the industry.

Can you tell us about your own interest in photography, where it started and how it developed to the point you were thinking about book production?

I have been a keen photographer for most of my life and I enjoyed taking and viewing photographs from a very early age. I always had a lot of photographic inspiration around me.

My dad travelled a lot in his youth, he documented all of the places that he visited and he kept meticulous photo albums of all his travels.

We also had lots of family photo albums at home and I vividly remember going through them all on a weekly basis for most of my childhood and into my early teens! On reflection, I think it’s fair to say that I was slightly obsessed with photography!

I started to take photographs when I was about 7 years old and have always had cameras and an interest in photography ever since.

I also grew up surrounded by books, my Dad was a printer and he used to bring lots of books home that he had printed. So, I guess photo book publishing was inevitable!

Did you have your own website at all or participate in any of the online communities such as Flickr? How did this shape your view of photography?

It was actually Flickr that inspired me to get my first DSLR (Canon EOS 400D)

I discovered Flickr in 2007 and it played a huge part in my enjoyment and development in photography. There was a great community spirit on Flickr and that helped cement my passion for all things photographic, Flickr was my go-to place for inspiration. Everybody was really helpful and encouraging.