Now Ridgers revisits this iconic era in The London Youth Portraits (ACC Art Books), a sumptuous collection of never-before-seen photographs of punks, skinheads, New Romantics, goths, ravers, and fetishists. Taken on the streets of Chelsea, Soho, Brixton, and Mayfair, as well as in legendary nightclubs like the Blitz, Batcave, Taboo, and Camden Palace, the book unfolds as timeless portrait of the London underground during Margaret Thatcher’s reign.
Ridgers made these photographs during a pivotal time in his career, as he shifted from amateur to professional photographer. During fall 1978, the ICA organized his first solo exhibition, Punk and Chips: Some Punk Photographs by Derek Ridgers and consequently published in the legendary Italian photography magazine, Zoom. “The first few years, my MO [method of operation] was very haphazard,” he remembers. “After that, I started to take myself a bit more seriously.”
By the mid-1980s, Ridgers was shooting music and nightlife for NME and The Face magazines, but remained unwavering in his devotion to documenting London’s radical chic. But it wasn’t until the rise of social media that he would learn the fates of those he photographed.
