‘In The Eighties‘ is the title of a new book by Derek Ridgers, an old friend of mine, being launched tonight (14 Sept 2017) at The Library Space in Battersea Park Road, London.
You can see a preview of the book and read some of Derek’s views in the feature ‘Documentary Photography: A Masterclass from Derek Ridgers‘ on ‘Another Man’.
Derek gives a straightforward account of how he took these sometimes remarkable portraits in the article: “I just walk straight up to people and say ‘Do you mind if I take your picture?’”. The people he chose were those who caught his attention, particularly as he walked along the King’s Road, then the epicentre of young London’s trend-setting young fashions. Since most – but certainly not all – of those he chose were very deliberately presenting their image to the public I imagine most were more than pleased to be asked to pose for a photograph, and cooperated with him as he moved them into a suitable place nearby to find the kind of background he liked, “something that’s very plain, without anything to detract the eye, and yet something that still possesses an element of time and place.”
The quote about backgrounds comes from one of five tips for aspiring documentary photographers in the article – you’ll have to read it to find the others.
Derek and I were for some years a part of a small group of photographers who came together monthly to bring our latest pictures and discuss them. We all I think benefited from the sometimes frank appraisals, and Derek’s were usually franker than most, often saying bluntly what others of us were thinking but trying to find more delicate ways to express. ‘Framework‘, as the group became known as, was something of a hard school, and one that some could not take. Elsewhere I’ve described it as “a pionering UK group of independent photographers until its demise in 1993; together we organised around 20 group exhibitions almost all of which included some of my work. (Among many UK photographers to exhibit with Framework were Terry King, Carol Hudson, John RT Davies, Derek Ridgers and Jo Spence“), though Jo was never a member, but one of a number of others we invited to take part in our shows.
Framework had started life as a group inside a photographic club, but became a separate organisation after than club appropriated a gallery space and exhibition opportunity we had arranged for wider club use, changing its name from ‘Group Six‘ to ‘Framework‘. Derek had designed the orginal logo for Group 6, and it was one of his pictures on the poster for our first exhibition in 1984.
You can read more about Framework on an unfinished web site I began about it some years ago. Since I wrote this, at least two of the members, its main organiser Terry King and Randall Webb have died. Framework itself came to an end with the formation of London Independent Photography in 1993, which most of us joined. It was the experience of Framework that led me when a LIP committee member a year or two later to argue for the setting up of the local groups which now form a vital part of that organisation.