Photos That Preserved Britain’s Forgotten Subcultures

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]A 40-year career creating images of club culture made this photographer influential in that subgenre of documentary work. He also experienced the '70s British music scenes that redefined rock and the artist and figures involved in the birth of punk.

[00:00:13]On his work taking images of the punk movement, he stated, "Once one looked past the aggressive reputation of the punks, wondering whether or not they were going to spit at you or whatever, they were very easy to photograph and almost always friendly and polite. Most of them just loved the attention and I loved the do-it-yourself creativity of a lot of the clothes and makeup. Some of the punks had their life story written on their faces, sometimes literally, and often also on their clothes." At the point when Ridgers started creating this work, he wasn't really serious about photography at all, but was simply taking photos for the love of the craft.

[00:00:46]By the late 1970s, he was approached about having his work published and ended up with an eight-page spread in the highly regarded European photo magazine called Zoom. From there, he began to take things more seriously and his work evolved into what we see today.

[00:01:00]This is Insight for Inspiration, Derek Ridgers.

[00:01:07]The love that he had for music that later contributed to his photography career started in the mid-1960s. At this time, he was able to see multiple Jimi Hendrix performances as well as one of Syd Barrett's final shows with Pink Floyd. He cites concerts from Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, and the Rolling Stones as all having a huge impact on him and the work that he would go on to create.

[00:01:28]Ridgers' gateway into photography came through a job he had as an art director.

[00:01:32]The rigid guidelines of the photography involved in the advertising campaigns he made caused him to realize what he wanted to create on his own outside of that work. That mentality was later compounded by the first job that he took as a photographer once he decided to pursue that over art direction. In his own words, "They wanted a photograph of a van without any wheels. These days, that's probably 10 minutes work in Photoshop.

[00:01:55]Back then, the job had to be done longhand, as it were.

[00:01:58]I had to rent a van plus four jack stands, find an empty car park somewhere, take the wheels off the van, lay on the ground about 30 ft away, take my photographs, and then put everything back to how it was.

[00:02:11]It was the hottest day of the year and at that point I didn't have an assistant. The car park was deserted.

[00:02:18]But if anybody had seen what I was doing, they'd have definitely thought that I was mad. After that job, I decided advertising photography was probably not for me.

[00:02:26]Frames are possibly the number one sponsor for this channel in terms of an aligned vision through their product and what they offer subscribers. The magazine features photos and artwork from both big names and rising voices with the overall goal of pushing its subscribers to take their photography to another level. If you join Frames, you'll receive a quarterly printed magazine, monthly digital editions, a supportive community platform, and exclusive live events featuring renowned photographers. It's abundantly clear after speaking with the founder and editor Thomas, how invested he is in photography and how passionate he is about the products he and his team are building. If you're looking for a new way to more deeply engage with photography, find new photographers that you may have not have found otherwise, and support a product that is looking to take the photography community further, check out the link in the description.

[00:03:12]You can get 10% off a monthly or annual plan to Frames by using the code tank10 at checkout.

[00:03:19]By the 1980s, Derek began to create some noteworthy work through the images that he made at various nightclubs. This included images found in the photo book titled Ku Ibiza 1984. He sums up what inspired him to take these photos stating, "I first went to Ibiza on holiday with my family in 1983 and I was gobsmacked by the amazing nightlife scene in Ibiza town. It was like one big hot nightclub right there on the street.

[00:03:44]Lots of people looked like they'd gone there straight from the beach. I'd never seen so many bronze buttocks, both male and female. When we were back the following year, I took a camera. While clubs became one of the primary focal points for his photography, Riggers makes it clear that he was purely documenting these scenes and not taking part in them as any kind of lifestyle choice. He described the attire that he would wear to clubs and punk shows as what a geography teacher in the 1980s would have on. Expanding on this, he claims, "I never wanted to be an insider. The old Groucho Marx quote about never wanting to be a member of any club that would accept me as a member fits me like a glove.

[00:04:21]If you compare my skinhead photographs to those taken by a Gavin Watson, who was a skinhead himself, the perspective is entirely different.

[00:04:29]When I was a teenager, none of my friends were skinheads.

[00:04:33]And I did all I could do to avoid running into any of them.

[00:04:36]My friends were all hippie music nerds like me.

[00:04:39]I really admire Gavin's work, but I could never have walked that road myself."

[00:04:44]Derek's experience in Ibiza came to an end in the late '90s as it started to become too out of control and take away from the way that he had liked to photograph it. Once he couldn't follow his process through the rave scene that had blossomed into what it is today, which is radically different from what it was in the 1980s, he never felt the need to return there.

[00:05:03]Throughout his entire career, Derek has been around the birth of several subcultures, including skinheads, fetish, ravers, goths, mods, and several others. And why he has been compelled to follow these people living alternative lifestyles, he stated, "I suppose one could say that I've always sought to express my own feelings of otherness via my choice of subjects.

[00:05:24]Finding these subcultures and documenting them was the byproduct of being polite and respectable, while also having a ton of luck.

[00:05:33]In terms of the skinheads he photographs, Derek claimed that if you go into a room of 10, 20, or 100 skinheads, you won't immediately know which are the ones to avoid. And they don't necessarily announce themselves. So, as I say, I was very, very lucky and could have been beaten up or worse more than once. I owe my guardian angel quite a lot.

[00:05:54]Skins were one of the more underground groups that Derek covered and he felt that clubs were underground in a similar kind of way and the value of documenting them came through knowing that they were places that people went to at the time to find like-minded individuals, especially in regard to fetish and gay clubs.

[00:06:10]The freedom of expression that came out of these rooms was what compelled him to document them. Once he'd made a name for himself through the documentation of various subcultures, Derek moved on to work for magazines NME and The Face.

[00:06:23]Throughout this stretch of his life, he says life became easier because the work always found him instead of how it always been before where he'd have to work so much harder to find projects with monetary value that were also compelling for him to make.

[00:06:37]In his own words about getting this work despite what people say these days about there being no value whatsoever in exposure it certainly wasn't true then.

[00:06:46]Asserting my creative authority took a little longer.

[00:06:49]As I developed a stronger style people gradually knew what to expect a bit more and they were less visibly surprised when I brought my prints in.

[00:06:58]But for a freelancer it can always be a bit of a struggle.

[00:07:01]I'm sure most creative people would agree that periods of self-doubt are never that far away.

[00:07:07]In regards to all of the work that he's created he says that when it comes to portraiture he tries to stay out of the way as much as possible and let the subject be themselves in order to create quality images. When it comes to bands and fashion he takes a complete opposite approach and takes charge of the situation.

[00:07:24]Throughout his photography career, Derek has created a myriad of photo books that all revolve around specific subjects.

[00:07:30]78-87 London Youth focuses on the birth of punk and the New Romantics movement.

[00:07:35]The Dark Carnival revolves around portraits of people from various club scenes.

[00:07:40]Cannes looks at how the film festival once was and how it's changed over time and all of the many different kinds of experiences people could have there.

[00:07:48]Hello, I Love You is made up entirely of photos of people kissing each other from all of the different places and people that he's photographed throughout his career.

[00:07:56]And there are just a few books that make up his entire body of work, each giving a different glimpse into the importance of gaining access and making the most of it in terms of what we photograph.

[00:08:07]In terms of continuing to create work now in his 70s, he has thoughts on where subcultures stand and the state of the youth of today.

[00:08:15]In summary, he feels that baby boomers had it best in so many ways, but that it was much harder to create and put your stuff out there because of the extra time and effort it took to do so many things that we would find just completely rudimentary at this point.

[00:08:30]Today's youth have so many other hurdles in terms of paying for education and the difficulties of the housing market. But he feels that people are much more creative now than in previous generations and have the ability to create so much more if they're willing to get after it. Derek Ridgers has created a ton of great work on so many cool and unique subcultures of people that it should inspire us to find these kinds of people ourselves in our own life and put them into our own work.

[00:08:56]Thanks for watching. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. And until next time, keep developing.