In quotes: Derek Ridgers
While many 1970s kids were picking up guitars in homage to punk, Derek Ridgers armed himself with a camera, capturing the energy of Britain’s subcultures in the faces of their protagonists.
From skinheads and bikers to new romantics and the club kids of today, the ex-advertising art director has documented the scenes that like to dress up and, all too often, disappear, only to be replaced by something different.
Ridgers has shot for magazines such as The Face, NME and Loaded – his black-and-white photos of rubber-clad S&M clubbers in the latter were in contrast to the rest of mag– and snapped celebrities like Boy George, James Brown and Johnny Depp. You can find his work in books such as When We Were Young: Club And Street Portraits 1978–1987.
Here, Ridgers talks to Umbrella’s Elliott Lewis-George about the scenes that make Britain exciting, what makes a good photograph and how technology has made documenting your scene easier than ever.
“In the ’70s, I started to carry a camera wherever I went. Four decades on it appears that I was documenting something, although it was never planned that way.”
“All my work could be seen as a sort of love letter to London. I don’t know of any British subculture from the past that I wouldn’t have wanted to photograph.”
“I hate the genre of celebrity portraiture where the sitter has been induced to do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do. With everyday folk, the only way to do a good job is to take your time, stay out of the way and not manipulate anything.”
“I disagree with the premise that style is weapon for anarchy: 99.99 per cent of the time, the people with an anarchy symbol painted on their leather jackets are anything but”
“In the mid-’70s I made the leap from music fan to keen amateur photographer. Then from keen amateur to professional photographer. The day I started to get commissions from the NME was the day I was finally able to think of myself as a full-time professional photographer — in 1982. From then I was able to earn a living.”
“I’ve never really been intimidated by my subjects. If a situation ever looks like it might get out of hand then I just leave and never get to find out what might have happened.”
“The skinheads were the only ones who ever approached me to get their picture taken, rather than the other way around. The only ones that really aren’t very keen are the bikers.”
“Instagram has had a tremendous effect on documentary photography. Nowadays, everyone can document their lives and the lives of people around them and some of it – a lot of it, actually – is very interesting”
“Every subculture I’ve documented has been interesting in its own way. Punk opened my eyes to the possibility of photographing a group of people that I didn’t know. Punk was also obviously very photogenic and it was quite an easy way into documentary portraiture. The skinheads made me take what I was doing a lot more seriously; photographing them made me realise that I needed to watch my back. And the new romantics showed me just how truly creative young people can be.”
“I disagree with the premise that style is weapon for anarchy: 99.99 per cent of the time, the people with an anarchy symbol painted on their leather jackets are anything but.”
“Instagram has had a tremendous effect on documentary photography. Nowadays, everyone can document their lives and the lives of people around them and some of it – a lot of it, actually – is very interesting.”
“Parties and nightclubs are not really places for nuance. If I’m going to have some sort of an issue with someone, I can almost always tell a long time before it actually happens and to save everyone the grief, I just leave. But it does help if one always has an angel sitting on one’s shoulder.”
“The skinheads were the only ones who ever approached me to get their picture taken, rather than the other way around. The only ones that really aren’t very keen are the bikers”
“I my honest opinion, if you really want to know what makes a great portrait, you’d need to study the work of Richard Avedon [American fashion and portrait photographer]. I think he was the greatest.”
“For great portraiture I think there has to be some sort of meaning behind it. This means emotional depth and an element of truth. The best way to achieve this is if the photographer doesn’t insert themselves too far into the whole equation — let the camera do the work – would be my advice.”
“I know of several books that have been published directly from work first seen on Instagram. But really there could be thousands out there. Millions maybe. Back when I started there wasn’t quite the same level of desire to record things. To see one’s work get published was almost as rare as winning the lottery. I had to wait years for my first book to be published.”
In The Eighties – Portraits From Another Time is out now.