
While speaking of documenting subculture and youth culture in London, you can’t not mention Derek Ridgers. His portraits of punks, new romantics, skinheads and mods taken on the street, at gigs and inside legendary clubs like the Blitz and Taboo are among the most significant depictions created of British subculture from the 70s and onwards. Decades after these photos were taken, they are as relevant as ever, and earlier this year, a new selection from Derek’s archive was published in his book The London Youth Portraits.
As part of our subculture series, we spoke with Derek about his work, how subculture and documenting it has changed over time, and what’s next for him.
Could you tell me a bit about what led you to start taking these iconic portraits of yours?
Well, I was a music fan when I was young. I used to go to see a lot of bands in London, because there were so many that played in those days. And also it was very easy to get in to see them, not like it is nowadays. I had been going to see bands for six or seven years before it ever dawned on me that I would want to photograph them. And then I started photographing the bands. When punk started in 76 the audience became more photogenic than most of the bands, so I decided to switch around and photograph the audience. And then it became punks wherever they went, to clubs and places like that. I got a show quite quickly of my work, punk photographs, and then it got quite a bit of publicity, and I thought I might as well carry on. So I started shooting young people in clubs after that.
What drew you to documenting these subcultures in particular?
Having thought about it over the years, I think most probably it was because I was quite ordinary myself. I was normcore before normcore existed. And therefore I was fascinated, I suppose, by people who appeared to be more interesting than I was, so that was probably what drew me.

Why do you think people connect so much with these portraits? What about them resonates with people?
I think nowadays, people like to see what people were like back in the 80s. There's quite a bit of focus on the 80s these days, I don't think they're interested so much in my photography itself. They’re interested in those people, when life was a little bit more real back then, everything's gone corporate these days, and it's bifurcated completely between the rich and the poor. Back in the 80s, it was still a bit like that, but there was a little bit more of a mixture, I think.
And I think - for people around my age - nostalgia. But I think for young people who like to look at the photographs, they are fascinated by how it used to be. Of course, the thing is that I do tell people it never really was like that. I was photographing just a tiny part of that world. People shouldn't imagine everything was like that. You know, if you're interested in the 60s and the mods and the rockers and the beginnings of when life was suddenly very colourful, the Carnaby Street thing - that was a tiny group of people. You see films and TV nowadays of what clubs were like, The Scene Club was one where mods used to go, and people tend to think everything was like that. But it was just a few people. If you look closely at the mods or the hippies, most of the people are normal, and the cameras are just focusing on the people that aren't so normal. And that was what it was like back in my day. You can go to some clubs where everyone looks interesting nowadays, but you really couldn’t back in the day.

Yes, there are several club nights now where you can go and you know that pretty much everyone will be dressed in a very creative and interesting way.
Yeah, I think nowadays you can go to a club where you could see a punk, a new romantic, a skinhead, a mod, all in the same crowd, and none of them would really stick out, and they wouldn't feel like they weren't at home. I think it's better in that respect nowadays, although subcultures don't really have a chance to breathe before they are subjected to the scrutiny of the internet these days.
Did you notice a difference back in the day between different subcultural groups and how willing they were to be photographed?
No. Back in the late 70s, the early 80s, if I approached people in a polite way, most people were fine with it. It wouldn't matter who it was, punks, skinheads, new romantics, bikers. Of course, if you get groups of people and they maybe had a few beers, that can be more difficult, you have to be sensible with these things. Some people like to show off, if it was a skinhead, they might think “I'll go up and stick the nut on this bloke, who does he think he is? And then all my mates will think it's a laugh”. That kind of thing can happen. They might have nothing against you whatsoever, they just might be showing off, so if you're going to do that type of thing, then you have to be a little bit careful. But most people were very nice to me back in the day. Not everyone wanted their photograph taken, sometimes people just said no, and that's fine.
Photographing all these people, you must have had quite a lot of memorable encounters. Do you have any memory that stands out?
I’ve got lots of memories of taking these photographs. But the thing is, I don't like to tell people those memories really. I mean, I suppose if you twisted my arm up my back I might, but I want the story always to be in the photograph. If the photograph doesn't tell its own story, it's not a good enough photograph.

I imagine people engage differently with having their photograph taken today?
Oh, they do, yes. They do now, because they don't need their photograph taken for them to be seen by their friends. Back in the late 70s, when I started, people really needed someone like me to come along and give them publicity, let the world see them. They wanted to be seen, especially dressed up, and you're only ever going to look like that for one evening. So they needed people like me.
You know, I found it very difficult to get into the Blitz club. When I first started going, they didn't really want me there. I was, as I say, very normcore, and they were all very colourful, so it took a lot of persuading for them to let me in. But as soon as my photographs appeared in magazines, I was welcomed for that reason.
You photographed in many legendary clubs, like the Blitz and Taboo. Did you have a favourite club?
In different eras, there's always a favourite place, because my preference will be clubs that are easy to get into and clubs where lots of people that I want to photograph are going. I really liked Camden Palace because it was big and it attracted quite a lot of tourists. I don't know how many people you get in there, but I would say a couple of thousand, maybe three thousand, and some of those would be tourists. Very often they'd be trying very hard, and there would sometimes be things that they didn't quite get right, according to the fashions in London at the time, but it would still be very photogenic. Sometimes the mistakes that people make can be better than if they got everything perfect.

Do you have a favourite spot in London to go to nowadays to photograph people?
To be honest, I’m quite detached from what's going on in London clubs these days. I mean, I know some of them, but 95 per cent of the good clubs, I wouldn't necessarily know which ones they are nowadays. The other thing that I have to say is there are some club photographers now that are miles better than I ever was, that are going out doing it now. So I don't feel the need, really. I don't want to compete with these people, because some of their work is marvellous, and also they're much closer to them psychologically. They're clubbers themselves. I never really was a clubber, I was always a bloke that stood out like a sore thumb in these places. Mind you, I was happy to do that. I didn't want to dress up and pretend to be one of them ever, because I didn't think that would be very honest.
What about outside of clubs, because you do still photograph people on the streets?
I shoot anywhere I think that people are going to be colourful, if I've got the time and opportunity. Everything's more corporate now though. The last time I did it was at Pride a couple of months back, and I always enjoy that, but that's got much more corporate than it ever was. So to find really colourful, interesting characters in an event like that is harder now than it was, even though it's much more mainstream now. It’s a very friendly, positive atmosphere at Pride, but the real interesting characters are harder to find, I think.

Do you think the relationship between subculture and the mainstream has changed a lot through the times?
Yeah, I think it has, because subculture has been drawn into the mainstream a little bit more. There are no longer so many little basement clubs, I think if you run a club now, you have to be well financed and have proper security and check everyone's ID on the door, and everything has to be done right nowadays.
Is it important to document subculture and youth culture?
Yes, I think it is. I did it by accident, really, but I still think it is important to document it. Just because history is interesting. I think it's an aspect of history, and I think history is all around us all the time. So I think it's important for people's development to see. If we don't understand history, we're going to be making a lot of mistakes.

What are you currently working on? What’s next for you?
I've got the idea of doing a book about the Cannes Film Festival in the 80s and 90s. That's probably going to be my next project. I'm also working with a writer on another book about the new romantics. We want to target it a little bit more specifically about the new romantics, because there's going to be a big show at the Design Museum in 2025 so we want to do something in time for that.
Speaking of future projects, is there any particular group or scene that you still haven’t photographed but you’d really like to document?
I'd love to go back to the 50s and photograph the teddy boys if that was ever possible. But not really. I feel that I'm just a bit too old. At my age, I should be focusing on other things with whatever time I've got left, producing work based on my archive, because 98 per cent of it has never been seen or published, and therefore I think I should focus on that, rather than trying to catch up with other younger photographers who, as I say, are much better.