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[[File:DerekRidgers0.jpg|thumb|Derek Ridgers]] |
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===Derek Ridgers (photographer)=== |
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==Professional Career== |
==Professional Career== |
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[[File:Derek_Ridgers_-_skinhead_girls,_1980.jpg|thumb|right|Original skins photo by Derek Ridgers]] [[File:Derek_Ridgers_-_Morrissey_postcard.jpg|thumb|right|Morrissey's request for a print]] [[File:Derek_Ridgers_-_skinhead_backdrop1.jpg|thumb|right|Morrissey on stage, Finsbury Park, 1992]] |
[[:File:Derek_Ridgers_-_skinhead_girls,_1980.jpg|thumb|right|Original skins photo by Derek Ridgers]]<!--Non free file removed by DASHBot--> [[:File:Derek_Ridgers_-_Morrissey_postcard.jpg|thumb|right|Morrissey's request for a print]]<!--Non free file removed by DASHBot--> [[:File:Derek_Ridgers_-_skinhead_backdrop1.jpg|thumb|right|Morrissey on stage, Finsbury Park, 1992]]<!--Non free file removed by DASHBot--> |
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Among his first published work were pictures taken on a second-hand Nikkormat, bought as a cheap camera to take to punk nights at the [[Hammersmith Palais]]. He pogo'd up and down with the best, taking pictures using a flash on a home-made bracket. During this time he photographed a very early [[Adam and the Ants]], [[The Slits]], [[Penetration]], etc. Before long his pictures were attracting attention, and he had an exhibition at the [[Institute of Contemporary Arts]]. |
Among his first published work were pictures taken on a second-hand Nikkormat, bought as a cheap camera to take to punk nights at the [[Hammersmith Palais]]. He pogo'd up and down with the best, taking pictures using a flash on a home-made bracket. During this time he photographed a very early [[Adam and the Ants]], [[The Slits]], [[Penetration]], etc. Before long his pictures were attracting attention, and he had an exhibition at the [[Institute of Contemporary Arts]]. |
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Revision as of 05:43, 16 May 2010
Derek Ridgers (photographer)
Derek Ridgers (born October, 1950), is an established and well known English photographer with a career spanning over thirty years. Most famous for his work among the pop mileau of music and club/street culture - photographing everyone from Bob Dylan to The Spice Girls - he has also compiled an almost unrivalled image archive during three decades of visually chronicling famous and sometimes influential British social scenes such as skinhead, fetish, club, punk and New Romantic.
Early Life
Born in Chiswick, West London, Derek Ridgers trained as a graphic artist at Ealing School of Art 1967-71, and where one of his fellow students was Freddie Mercury. Ridgers love of music led him to attend many seminal live events of the time: his first live gig was seeing Jimi Hendrix in a tiny London venue; he saw the only ever UK concert given by The Doors (at The Roundhouse); he witnessed the Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and attended the famous Hyde Park free concert in 1969 by the Rolling Stones, two days after the the death of Brian Jones.
Ridgers Zelig-like ability to appear at historic events was further enhanced when he attended one of the most famous counter culture events of the Sixties, a 'happening' called The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. This was a concert held at the Alexandra Palace, London, on 29 April 1967. This fund-raising concert for the International Times was organised by Barry Miles and John "Hoppy" Hopkins and was part-documented by Peter Whitehead in a film called Tonite Let's All Make Love in London. Pink Floyd eveentually appeared right at the end of the show, just as the sun was beginning to rise at around five o'clock in the morning.
Following his art school eductation, Ridgers went into advertising where he worked as an Art Director for ten years. One of his clients was a camera company and he picked up the product and gave it a try. When he parted with the agency he decided to take up photography.
Professional Career
thumb|right|Original skins photo by Derek Ridgers thumb|right|Morrissey's request for a print thumb|right|Morrissey on stage, Finsbury Park, 1992 Among his first published work were pictures taken on a second-hand Nikkormat, bought as a cheap camera to take to punk nights at the Hammersmith Palais. He pogo'd up and down with the best, taking pictures using a flash on a home-made bracket. During this time he photographed a very early Adam and the Ants, The Slits, Penetration, etc. Before long his pictures were attracting attention, and he had an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
After leaving the world of advertising to become a professional photographer, Ridgers began working for music and style magazines such as NME and The Face and building up a body of work that would help establish his reputation as one of the foremost documentarians of contemporaneous British pop and street culture. This reputation was founded on his work among the sub-culture of skinheads, Punks and New Romantics.
Many of these photographs are collected in the books Skinheads and When We were Young: Club and Street Portraits 1978 - 1987. After receiving a written request from Morrissey (formely of The Smiths), one of Ridgers's skinhead portraits was later made famous by its use by the singer during his 'Your Arsenal' tour (and also on the tour passes). The image was enlarged enormously and used as the stage backdrop for Morrissey's now infamous Finsbury Park gig of August, 1992, which led to accusations against the singer by the NME of racism.
When We Were Young collects together the portraits that were to become some of the most iconic works in Ridgers canon, that of young skinheads, punks and New Romantic club kids from the Seventies through to late Eighties; many, like Boy George, Steve Strange and Spandau Ballet were captured by Ridgers whilst still living in relative anonymity.
In writing about When We Were Young, Val Williams, Director of Photography at the London College of Communication and exhibition curator at the Tate and the Barbican, states:
“Derek Ridgers’s compulsion to photograph London clubs over two decades was an extraordinary one. He has produced thousands of remarkable photographs of remarkable people, transient beings moving across an urban landscape, experimenters, flamboyant souls who cared more than anything about how they looked and whose greatest fear was of being ordinary.
But it was the ordinariness that Derek Ridgers glimpsed in these costumed characters that makes his photographs so powerful. Ridgers’s photographs are an undeliberate chapter in a decade of English social and cultural history which changed the way we thought about music, fashion and consumption. It was the decade of the handmade and the customised, of Oxfam shopping, conspicuous sexuality, of excess, wide success and dismal failure.
Played out against the backdrop of a rapidly changing London cityscape and a revolution in politics and economics, the style cultures that Derek Ridgers photographed meant far more than style.”
As well as his portrait-reportage work, Ridgers also began to amass commissions to photograph music and film stars of the era. Working at the time predominantly for NME, but also for other pop culture publications and national newspapers, over the years he has photographed artists as varied as Frank Zappa, John Lee Hooker, The Ramones, Prince, The Spice Girls, JG Ballard, Richard Harris and Martin Amis. Many of these portraits and other rare versions of more widely shown sessions are collected together in Ridgers most recent book Un/Seen.
Loaded
Having already worked with the writer James Brown at NME, when Brown left to become the editor and co-founder, with Tim Southwell, of Loaded magazine, Ridgers was asked to contribute. He found himself present at the inception of a publication that would revolutionise the men's magazine market and go on to become one of the most controversial and the biggest selling lifestyle magazine in the country.
It was during his long tenure as a cover/features photographer at Loaded that Ridgers would first establish his own page of club photographs called 'Getting away with It', which would run for the next fifteen years (until 2010), becoming one of the longest running features in the magazine's history. Many of these black & white fetish club scene photographs were later collected together in the book Stare: Portraits from the Endless Night.
Publications
During his career, Ridgers has worked for many publications, including NME, The Face, The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Observer, Time Out and Loaded.
Exhibitions
Derek Ridgers work has been exhibited internationally since the Seventies in cities as far ranging as London, Paris, Moscow, Adelaide and Los Angeles, in venues such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Museum of Modern Art, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Museum of London, Britart Gallery, Selfridges and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Select exhibitions:
- Punk Portraits - ICA, London (1978
- Skinheads - Chenil Studio Gallery (1980)
- The Kiss - Photographers' Gallery, London (1982)
- Contemporary British Photography - The Developed Image, Adelaide, (1983)
- Les Mythes de nos Nippes - Museum of Modern Art, Paris (1983)
- Moe de Vie - Moscow (1984)
- The Face - Photographers' Gallery, London (1984)
- Portraits - East Studio, Cantebury (1986)
- One Man Show - City Centre Art Gallery, Dublin (1990)
- NME Exposed - Terrence Higgins Trust, UK touring show (1995-6)
- Rock and Roll Attitudes - Maison Europenne de la Photographie, Paris (1998)
- Rock and Roll Years - Proud Gallery, Brighton (1999)
- ICONS - National Portrait Gallery, London (1999)
- Golden - Britart Gallery, London (2002)
- Very Public Art - Selfridges, London (2003)
- Black British Style - Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2004-5)
- The London Look - Museum of London (2004)
- How We Are Now - National Portrait Gallery, London (2007)
- Club F**K 20th Anniversary - Antebellum, Los Angeles (2009)
- Every Bodies Enemies (with Danny Flynn) - Ketchum Pleon, London (2010)
Subjects
Musicians, actors, writers, sportsmen and politicians that have been the subject of Derek Ridgers' photographs include:
- The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, John Cale, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, BB King, James Brown, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Nick Cave, The Ramones, The Cramps, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, REM, U2, Sonic Youth, Guns n Roses, Frank Zappa, Prince, Snoop Dogg, Run DMC, NWA, Eazy-E, Beck, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Green Day, Hole, Marilyn Manson, Gwen Stefani, No Doubt, David Byrne, Lydia Lunch, Natalie Merchant, Amanda Lear, Beastie Boys, Barry White, Billy Corgan, Chaka Khan, Debbie Harry, Henry Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Joan Jett, Jerry Garcia, Mike Patton, Faith No More, Nina Hagen, Steve Earle, Tom Verliane, Tommy Lee, Willy Dixon, Beastie Boys, Del la Soul, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Alice Cooper, Axl Rose, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson, ZZ Top
- Morrissey, The Smiths, Joe Strummer, Radiohead, Oasis, Robert Plant, The Stone Roses, Ian Brown, Happy Mondays, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Blur, Jarvis Cocker, Pulp, Robbie Williams, The Fall, Mark E Smith, Placebo, Badly Drawn Boy, Bjork, Annie Lennox, Eurythmics, The Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue, Sir George Martin, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Skin, Curve, Shane McGowan, The Pogues, Primal Scream, Depeche Mode, Boy George, Steve Strange, Spandau Ballet, Jesus and Mary Chain, John Cooper Clarke, Simple Minds, Lloyd Cole, Marc Almond, Soft Cell, Arthur Brown, Chrissie Hynde, Andy Cairns, Brian Eno, Daniella Dax, Ian Dury, John Peel, The Prodigy, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Lemmy, The Waterboys, The Pet Shop Boys, Ritra Marley, Robert Wyatt, Siouxsie Sioux, Sinead O’Conner, The Charlatans, Thom Yorke, Suede, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithful, INXS, Paul Weller, Adam and The Ants, The Damned, The Slits, Penetration, The Specials
- Tony Blair, Enoch Powell, Ken Livingston
- Aryton Senna, Frank Lampard, Thierry Henry
- Richard Harris, Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, David Lynch, Tim Roth, Colin Firth, David Thewlis, Alan Bates, Alan Rickman, Alexie Sayle, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris Penn, Christopher Lee, Danny Huston, Samuel L Jackson, Max Von Sydow, Ray Winston, Richard E Grant, Simon Callow, Simon Pegg, The Cohen Brothers, Wes Craven, Helen Mirren, Catherine Zeta Jones, Pam Hogg, Sofia Coppola, Traci Lords
- Helmut Newton, James Elroy, Damien Hirst, Derek Jarman, Douglas Adams, JG Ballard, John Galliano, Julian Schnabel, Martin Amis, Peter Blake, Peter Cook, Eddie Izzard, Spike Milligan.
Books
- UN/SEEN by Derek Ridgers - http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1119466 - slideshow of images
- SKINHEADS by Derek Ridgers - http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1117764 - slideshow of images
- WHEN WE WERE YOUNG: Club and Street Portraits 1978 - 1987 by Derek Ridgers - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Ridgers-Young-Street-Portraits/
- STARE: Portraits from the Endless Night by Derek Ridgers - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stare-Portraits-Endless-Derek-Ridgers/
Selected books featuring the work of Derek Ridgers:
- Skinhead - by Nick Knight
- Fashioning London: Clothing and the Modern Metropolis - by Christopher Breward
- Fashion as Photograph: Viewing and Reviewing Images of Fashion - by Eugenie Shinkle
- New Romantics: The Look - by Dave Rimmer
- Moshpit Culture - by Joe Ambrose and Chris Charlesworth
- Popular Culture: The Metropolitan Experience - by Iain Chambers
- In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification - by Victoria Pitts
- Cultural Studies: Vol 1 - by James Donald
- Liminal Acts: A Critical Overview of Contemporary Performance and Theory - by Susan Margaret Broadhurst
- The Look: Adventures in Rock and Pop Fashion - by Malcolm McLaren, Paul Gorman, and Paul Smith
- Rap Attack 3: African Rap To Global Hip Hop - by David Toop
- Love Lust Desire - by Michelle Olley
- Turquoise Days: The Weird World of Echo and The Bunnymen - by Chris Adams
- Fetish: Masterpieces of Erotic Fantasy Photography - by Tony Mitchell
- Vintage: Art of Dressing Up - by Tracy Tolkien
External Links
- http://www.derekridgers.com - official website containing the Derek Ridgers Archive, portraits, bands, live, documentary.
- http://www.facebook.com/derek.ridgers - official Facebook page
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/gallery/2009/oct/04/photography - Guardian/Observer slideshow of Derek Ridger’s Blitz Kids photographs
- http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/howweare/ - 'How We Are: Photographing Britain' - Tate Britain
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