Derek Ridgers

Born in Chiswick, west London, Derek Ridgers trained as a graphic artist at Ealing School of Art between 1967 and 1971,Biography of Ridgers, in Val Williams and Susan Bright, How We Are: Photographing Britain, from the 1840s to the Present (London: Tate, 2007; {{ISBN|978-1-85437-7142}}), p. 219. where one of his fellow students was Freddie Mercury. Ridgers' love of music led him to attend many live events of the time, one of which was The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream.{{cite web |author=Henry Real |title=BBC Radio 6 Music – Gideon Coe, 21/06/2011 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0121wzn/Gideon_Coe_21_06_2011/ |publisher=BBC |date=21 June 2011 |accessdate=26 July 2014}}

Following art school, 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.

One of the first concerts at which he took photos was by Ron Wood, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend at the Finsbury Park Rainbow, on 13 January 1973.{{cite web |url=http://www.derekridgers.com/homepage/Blog/Entries/2010/5/8_Ron_Wood___Eric_Clapton___Pete_TownshendThe_Finsbury_Park_Rainbow%2C_London_1973..html |title=The Ponytail Pontifications |publisher=Derekridgers.com |accessdate=12 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709014220/http://www.derekridgers.com/homepage/Blog/Entries/2010/5/8_Ron_Wood___Eric_Clapton___Pete_TownshendThe_Finsbury_Park_Rainbow,_London_1973..html |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}}

The emergence of punk rock in the late 1970s fascinated Ridgers.{{cite web |title=The Ponytail Pontifications |url=http://www.derekridgers.com/homepage/Blog/Entries/2010/5/10_The_Rolling_Stones%2C_Earls_Court%2C_London_May_1976.html |publisher=Derekridgers.com |date=10 May 2010 |accessdate=12 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709014335/http://www.derekridgers.com/homepage/Blog/Entries/2010/5/10_The_Rolling_Stones,_Earls_Court,_London_May_1976.html |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}} 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. Ridgers used a flash on a home-made bracket. During this time he photographed a very early Adam and the Ants, the Slits, Penetration, the Clash and the Damned.{{cite web |url=http://www.derekridgers.com/index/module/media/category/gallery%7Clive/start/0 |title=Derek Ridgers Photo Gallery |publisher=Derekridgers.com |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010044538/http://www.derekridgers.com/index/module/media/category/gallery%7Clive/start/0 |archive-date=10 October 2014 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}} He had an exhibition at the ICA in 1978.{{cite web |title="Punk And Chips: Punk Photographs by Derek Ridgers", Complete list of exhibitions since 1948 |url=https://www.ica.org.uk/download.php?id=1051 |url-status=bot: unknown |format=PDF |publisher=ICA.org |accessdate=5 March 2013 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130310204521/http://ica.org.uk/download.php?id=1051 |archivedate=10 March 2013 |df=dmy}}

After leaving advertising to become a professional photographer, Ridgers began working for music and style magazines such as NME{{cite web |url=http://www.archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com/category/nme/ |title=N.M.E. | Archived Music Press |publisher=.archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com |date= |access-date=26 July 2014}} and The Face.

Ridgers' early photography of skinheads led to several situations where he was personally at risk from some of them until he became accepted as an observer. They were approachable and friendly.Derek Ridgers, "{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120409222648/http://www.sabotagetimes.com/life/skinheads-1979-1984/ Skinheads: 1979–1984]}}", Sabotage Times. Many of these photographs were later collected in the book Skinheads (2010).http://www.secure.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1117764 {{dead link|date=July 2014}}

Morrissey used one of Ridgers' skinhead portraits during his Your Arsenal tour. As well as being used on the tour passes, the image was enlarged enormously and used as the stage backdrop for the tour and for Morrissey's 'Madstock' Finsbury Park gig of August 1992.{{cite web |title=MORRISSEY Flying the flag or flirting with disaster? |url=http://www.motorcycleaupairboy.com/interviews/1992/caucasian.htm |publisher=Motorcycleaupairboy.com |date=22 August 1992 |access-date=26 July 2014}}

Ridgers has photographed the British fetish club scene, from the early days of its inception as a little-known underground scene – for example, the start of the Skin Two club in 1982, which was first held in Stallions nightclub in Soho – up until the Skin Two Rubber Ball{{vague|date=February 2013}} and quasi-mainstream acceptability. His work also appeared in Skin Two magazine under the editorship of Michelle Olley. She wrote of his book (Stare) of this work:

:Every midnight tribe is here – hippies, punks, ravers, goths, teds, mods and every pretty boy and dirty girl in between, shot in situ in their un-natural habitat. [. . . The book] manages to bring the glamour vixens and club kids together, creating a heady mix of reportage and eroticism. Uniquely, this is 'thrill of the moment' erotic realism, coming as it does directly from the subject, and not the photographer. He shoots it as he sees it, which makes this a rare and precious record of a certain kind of cheekiness, at a certain point in the evening, at a certain time in history.Michelle Olley, introduction to Derek Ridgers, Stare: Portraits from the Endless Night. Goliath, 2007. {{ISBN|3936709211}}.

As well as his portrait-reportage work, Ridgers also began to amass commissions to photograph music and film stars of the era. Working predominantly for NME, but also for national newspapers and other publications, he has photographed Frank Zappa, John Lee Hooker, The Ramones, Prince, The Spice Girls, J. G. Ballard, Richard Harris and Martin Amis.

Ridgers had already collaborated with the writer James Brown at NME. When Brown left to become the editor and co-founder – with Tim Southwell and Mick Bunnage – of Loaded magazine, Ridgers was asked to contribute. Ridgers was present at the inception of a magazine that at its height sold 400,000 copies a month.

As well as photographing a wide range of musicians, actors, writers and athletes, during his long tenure as a cover/features photographer at Loaded, Ridgers would first establish his own page of club photographs called 'Getting Away With It',{{cite web |title=Derek Ridgers Photo Gallery |url=http://www.derekridgers.com/index/category/gallery%7COther%7CGAWI/start/0 |url-status=dead |publisher=Derekridgers.com |accessdate=12 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709014747/http://www.derekridgers.com/index/category/gallery%7COther%7CGAWI/start/0 |archive-date=9 July 2011 |df=dmy-all}} which would run for fifteen years until 2010, one of the longest running features in the magazine's history.{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/how-we-all-got-loaded-565648.html |title= How we all got Loaded - Media, News - the Independent|website=www.independent.co.uk |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029172602/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/how-we-all-got-loaded-565648.html |archive-date=29 October 2010}} Many of these black-and-white fetish club scene photographs were later included in the book Stare: Portraits from the Endless Night.

Loaded also gave Ridgers his own page, "The Derek Ridgers Interview", in which he told behind-the-scenes stories from his past photo shoots.

When We were Young: Club and Street Portraits 1978 – 1987{{cite web |title=Photobook Library 1998–2012 |url=http://www.schaden.com/book/RidDerWhe03631.html |publisher=Schaden.com |accessdate=26 July 2014}} collects together portraits of young skinheads, punks and new romantics from the seventies through to the late eighties; many, like Boy George, Steve Strange and Spandau Ballet, were photographed while still unknown.

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.Val Williams (Director of Photography at the London College of Communication and exhibition curator at the Tate and the Barbican){{vague|date=February 2013}}

Of Ridgers' photographs of this period, Val Williams writes:

While Meadows' subjectsWilliams is referring to the people Daniel Meadows photographed during his bus journey of 1973–74. revealed themselves as gauche, inhibited and curious, Ridgers's young men and women inhabited the camera's gaze as performers in a very particular arena. But it was the ordinariness that he glimpsed in these costumed characters that makes his photographs so powerful – the people he photographed wore beauty like a mask. The worlds that Ridgers photographed were small ones, peopled by young men and women who were captivated by the idea of image. His photographs do not search souls, they look at surfaces; these are not so much portraits as documents. . . . His subjects knew the rules of photography, knew not to smile or gesticulate – they were always still, needing to be recorded, longing for celebrity. Ridgers's photography captured the transitory nature of culture, a fleeting glimpse into what arrives, passes and is gone.Val Williams, "Marks on the flesh: Character, costume and performance in British photography"; in Val Williams and Susan Bright, How We Are: Photographing Britain, from the 1840s to the Present (London: Tate, 2007; {{ISBN|978-1-85437-7142}}), p.21.

In 2017, Ridgers collaborated with the Italian fashion house, Gucci, to shoot their Alessandro Michele-designed men's and women's pre-autumn collection in Rome. This collaboration resulted in a photo-book, titled Hortus Sanitatis (Latin for 'garden of health'), published by Gucci and launched at the Comme des Garçons Trading Museum in Paris.{{Cite web|url=https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/gucci-to-unveil-limited-edition-book-by-photographer-derek-ridgers,844107.html|title=Gucci to unveil limited-edition book, by photographer Derek Ridgers|first=FashionNetwork com|last=WW|website=FashionNetwork.com}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/36536/1/derek-ridgers-new-gucci-book-limited-edition-dover-street-maket|title=Punk photographer Derek Ridgers shoots new Gucci book|date=27 June 2017|website=Dazed}}

In 2010, Ridgers collaborated with designer and printer Danny Flynn in an exhibition at Ketchum Pleon entitled Every Bodies Enemies. The pieces combined Ridgers' portraits of musicians, film makers and actors, such as Keith Richards, Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, Dennis Hopper, John Lee Hooker, David Lynch, Elvis Costello and Skin with Flynn's unusual screenprinting technique of printing using everyday powders such as sugar, salt, custard and raspberry powder.{{cite web |author=Ketchum Break Through |title=News |url=http://ketchum.com/es/news/ketchum-pleon-london |url-status=dead |publisher=Ketchum |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808155302/http://www.ketchum.com/es/news/ketchum-pleon-london |archive-date=8 August 2014 |language=es}}

Examples of the work produced for the Every Bodies Enemies gallery show, London:

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In 2022, Ridgers' images of Nick Cave from four photo-sessions were collated by Flynn into a book called Grace, published by Burning Book Press.{{Cite web|url=https://louderthanwar.com/grace-nick-cave-photography-by-derek-ridgers-book-review/|title=...grace: Nick Cave photography by Derek Ridgers - book review|first=Adam|last=Steiner|date=23 November 2022}}{{Cite web|url=https://hero-magazine.com/article/223032/derek-ridgers-on-his-new-nick-cave-photobook-grace|title=Derek Ridgers on his new Nick Cave photobook, Grace – HERO|website=Hero}}

• When We Were Young: Club and Street Portraits 1978–1987. Photoworks {{ISBN|190379613X}}. (2004; edited by Val Williams))
• Stare: Portraits from the Endless Night. Goliath, {{ISBN|3936709211}}. (2007)
• Afternoon at the Seven Palms and Other Stories. Self-published, Blurb.Afternoon at the Seven Palms is here [http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1644650] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101014034301/http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1644650|date=14 October 2010}} at blurb.com.
• Unpublished. Self-published, Blurb.Unpublished is here [http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1585508] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017223426/http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1585508|date=17 October 2010}} at blurb.com.
• Skinheads. Self-published, Blurb
• Un/seen. Self-published, Blurb.Ridgers' page at blurb.com is here [http://www.blurb.com/blurbnation/user/Derek_Rxxx] (2009){{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101023231538/http://www.blurb.com/blurbnation/user/Derek_Rxxx|date=23 October 2010}}. Un/seen is here [http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1119466] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100118112801/http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1119466|date=18 January 2010}} at blurb.com.
• 78-87 London Youth. Damiani.{{cite web |title=78/87 London Youth by Derek Ridgers – in pictures |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/mar/21/78-87-london-youth-derek-ridgers-in-pictures |work=The Guardian |date=21 March 2014}} (2014)
• Skinheads: 1979–1984. Omnibus Press.{{Cite news |date=2014-08-19 |title=Shooting skinheads: Derek Ridgers captures a cult – in pictures |language=en-GB |work=the Guardian |url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/aug/19/skinheads-derek-ridgers-photographs-in-pictures |access-date=2023-08-09 |issn=0261-3077}} (2014)
• The Others. IDEA (2015){{cite web | url=https://shapersofthe80s.com/2015/11/18/1980s-➤-the-ridgers-lens-lays-bare-the-pursuit-of-love/ | title=The Ridgers lens lays bare the pursuit of love | first=David | last=Johnson | publisher=Shapersofthe80s | date=18 November 2015 | accessdate=14 January 2025}}
• The Dark Carnival – Portraits from The Endless Night. Carpet Bombing Culture (2015)
• Punk London 1977. Carpet Bombing Culture (2017)
• Hortus Sanitatus x Gucci. IDEA (2017){{Cite web|url=https://www.unravel-productions.com/news/2017/6/7/derek-ridgers-x-gucci|title=Derek Ridgers x Gucci|website=Unravel Productions}}
• In the Eighties: Portraits from Another Time. Carpet Bombing Culture (2017)
• Derek Ridgers: Photographs. Carpet Bombing Culture (2018)
• Nick Cave 84. Zine (2019)
• YSL. Yves Saint Laurent photozine (2021){{Cite web|url=https://sustainability.ysl.com/en/product/673057YCL098486|title=Derek Ridgers Zine|date=2021|website=sustainability.ysl.com}}
• Grace... 84,89,92,97. Burning Book Press (2022){{Cite web|url=https://turnupthevolume.blog/2022/11/23/new-nick-cave-photo-book-called-grace-with-derek-rigers-shots/|title=New NICK CAVE Photo Book Called ‘…GRACE’ With DEREK RIGERS Shots|date=23 November 2022}}
• KU / Ibiza 1984. photozine (2024){{Cite web |url=https://www.unravel-productions.com/news/2024/4/25/derek-ridgers-ku-ibiza-84-photo-zine |title=Derek Ridgers: KU / Ibiza '84 Photo Zine |last=de Bueys |first=Ojos | date=25 April 2024 |website=unravel-productions.com}}
• The London Youth Portraits. ACC Books (2024){{Cite web |url=https://www.museumofyouthculture.com/london-youth-portraits-derek-ridgers-interview/ |title=The London Youth Portraits with Derek Ridgers |last=Maffrett |first=Esta| date=24 May 2024 |website=museumofyouthculture.com}}{{Cite web |url=https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/derek-ridgers-london-youth-portraits-book-launch-signing |title=Derek Ridgers: The London Youth Portraits, Book Launch & Signing |date=23 May 2024 |website=thephotographersgallery.org.uk}}

• ROXY 100 Nights at the Roxy: Punk London 1976-77 1977 – by Andrew Czezowski
• 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
• My Favourite Model – by various

• Punk Portraits, ICA, London (1978)
• Skinheads, Chenil Studio Gallery (1980)
• The Kiss, The Photographers' Gallery, London (1982)
• One Man Show, City Centre Art Gallery, Dublin (1990)
• The Endless Night: 35 Years of Nightclub Portraits, The Museum of Club Culture, Hull (2012)"[http://museumofclubculture.blogspot.jp/2012/04/endless-night-35-years-of-nightclub.html The Endless Night 35 Years of nightclub portraits 1977–2011]", Museum of Club Culture, 2011. Accessed 28 February 2013.
• Derek Ridgers: Photographs - Truman Brewery (2018)
• Punk London 1977 - {{ill|Galeria Rondo Sztuki|pl}}, Katowice, Poland (2018)

• Look at Me: Fashion And Photography In Britain 1960 To The Present Day, Milton Keynes Art Gallery (2001){{cite web |url=http://www.exhibitionsnet.com/archive/010801.php |title=The UK Gallery, Museum, Heritage and Visitor Attraction Centre |publisher=ExhibitionsNet.com |date=1 August 2001 |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808223251/http://www.exhibitionsnet.com/archive/010801.php |archive-date=8 August 2014 |url-status=dead}}
• Black British Style, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2004–05){{cite web|url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1341_black_british_style/the_exhibition/pdfs/fix_up_look_sharp.pdf |title=Fix Up, Look Sharp |publisher=Vam.ac.uk |accessdate=26 July 2014}}
• The London Look, Museum of London (2004){{cite web|url=http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/painting%20&%20drawing/cartoons%20and%20graffiti/art24823|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20130423185455/http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/painting%20%26%20drawing/cartoons%20and%20graffiti/art24823|url-status=dead|title=Fashionista! Capital Clothing At The Museum Of London | Culture24|archive-date=23 April 2013}}
• How We Are Now, National Portrait Gallery, London (2007){{cite web |url=http://thesocietyclubsoho.wordpress.com/tag/nick-cave/ |title=nick cave | The Society Club |publisher=Thesocietyclubsoho.wordpress.com |date=29 March 2012 |accessdate=26 July 2014}}{{cite web |url=http://shapersofthe80s.com/2012/03/30/%E2%9E%A4-proustian-frissons-aplenty-as-derek-ridgers-photographs-revisit-three-decades/ |title=Proustian frissons aplenty as Derek Ridgers' photographs revisit three decades | Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ |publisher=Shapersofthe80s.com |date=30 March 2012 |accessdate=26 July 2014}}
• How We Are: Photographing Britain. Tate Britain, London (2007).See the exhibition catalogue: Val Williams and Susan Bright, How We Are: Photographing Britain, from the 1840s to the Present (London: Tate, 2007; {{ISBN|978-1-85437-7142}}).
• Every Bodies Enemies (with Danny Flynn), Ketchum Pleon, London (2010){{cite web |url=http://www.ketchum.com/news/ketchum-pleon-london-hosts-award-winning-printmaker-and-typographer-danny-flynn |title=Pleon London Hosts Award-Winning Printmaker and Typographer Danny Flynn |publisher=Ketchum |date=24 March 2010 |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808160719/http://www.ketchum.com/news/ketchum-pleon-london-hosts-award-winning-printmaker-and-typographer-danny-flynn |archive-date=8 August 2014 |url-status=dead}}
• Observers: Photographers of the British Scene from the 1930s to Now, Galeria de Arte do Sesi, São Paulo, Brazil (2012){{cite web |url=http://www.normanparkinson.com/events/observers-photographers-british-scene-1930s-now/ |title=Archived copy |access-date=13 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150922131106/http://www.normanparkinson.com/events/observers-photographers-british-scene-1930s-now/ |archive-date=22 September 2015 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web |url=http://www.photobus.co.uk/?id=542 |title=Photobus ~ Exhibitions |publisher=Photobus.co.uk |date= |accessdate=26 July 2014}}{{cite web |url=http://transform.britishcouncil.org.br/en/content/observers-british-photography-and-british-scene |title=Observers: British Photography and the British Scene | Transform |publisher=Transform.britishcouncil.org.br |accessdate=26 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140729174037/http://transform.britishcouncil.org.br/en/content/observers-british-photography-and-british-scene |archivedate=29 July 2014 |df=dmy-all}}
• Sunday Times Magazine 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Saatchi Gallery, London (February 2012).
  (A Celebration of the Times's 1962 origination of newspaper colour supplements. 60 photographers exhibited, including Ridgers' portrait of Keith Richards)"[https://web.archive.org/web/20120529170523/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/magazine/article858993.ece 50 years of the Sunday Times Magazine]", The Sunday Times, 20 January 2012.{{cite web |url=http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/current/sunday_times.htm |title=The Sunday Times Magazine 50th Anniversary |publisher=Saatchi-gallery.co.uk |date=18 March 2012 |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-date=25 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130425081114/http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/current/sunday_times.htm |url-status=dead }}
• Pump Me Up: D.C. Subculture of the 1980s, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, USA (2013){{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/exhibits/pump-me-up-d.c.-subculture-of-the-1980s,1245540.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124071958/http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/exhibits/pump-me-up-d.c.-subculture-of-the-1980s,1245540.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=24 January 2013 |title=Pump Me Up: D.C. Subculture of the 1980s: Exhibits on |work=Washingtonpost.com |date=1 March 2013 |accessdate=26 July 2014}}{{cite web |url=http://getinvolved.corcoran.org/pumpmeup |title=Pump Me Up Party 02/22/2013 – Corcoran Gallery of Art |publisher=Getinvolved.corcoran.org |date=22 February 2013 |accessdate=26 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140728023436/http://getinvolved.corcoran.org/pumpmeup |archive-date=28 July 2014 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}}
• Ibiza: Moments In Love, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2013){{cite web |url=https://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/ibiza-moments-love |title=Ibiza: Moments in Love | Institute of Contemporary Arts |access-date=19 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140831213031/http://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/ibiza-moments-love |archive-date=31 August 2014 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/29/sex-ibiza-80s-ica-moments-love|title=Sun, sex and silver togas: ICA goes back to Ibiza in the 80s|first=Chloe|last=Ashby|date=29 November 2013|via=www.theguardian.com}}
• Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2013){{cite web |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-from-club-to-catwalk-london-fashion-in-the-80s/about-the-exhibition/ |title=Club to Catwalk: About the Exhibition – Victoria and Albert Museum |publisher=Vam.ac.uk |date=10 July 2013 |accessdate=26 July 2014}}
• London Fashion Week (with silversmith Andrew Bunney), 2012{{cite web |url=https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/13639/1/bunney-x-derek-ridgers|title=Bunney x Derek Ridgers|date=8 June 2012|website=Dazed}}
• 50 Years of British Style, Ben Sherman, Spitalfields, London (2013){{cite web |title=Ben Sherman: 50 years of style culture - in pictures |url=https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2013/jan/27/1 |work=The Guardian |date=27 January 2013}}
• One Nation Under a Groove, South Bank Centre, London (2015){{cite web|url=http://www.youthclubarchive.com/news/2015/6/4/one-nation-under-a-groove-southbank-centre|title=ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE - SOUTHBANK CENTRE|website=YOUTH CLUB}}
• Work, Rest and Play: British Photography from the 1960s to Today, touring exhibition, China (2015){{cite web |url=http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/work-rest-and-play-2 |title=Work, Rest and Play | Work, Rest and Play | the Photographers' Gallery |access-date=13 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150813221139/http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/work-rest-and-play-2 |archive-date=13 August 2015 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}}
• Punk Weekender - The Photographers' Gallery, London (2016) {{Cite web|url=https://metroimaging.co.uk/2016/06/14/punk-weekender-photographers-gallery/|title='Punk Weekender' at the Photographers' Gallery – Metro Imaging – Professional Photo Printing, Mounting and Framing|date=14 June 2016}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• Golden Boundaries - Robert Capa Centre, Budapest (2017) {{Cite web|url=https://capacenter.hu/en/kiallitasok/golden-boundaries|title=Golden Boundaries}}
• Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender & Identity - Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2017) {{cite web|url=https://www.artrabbit.com/events/coming-out-sexuality-gender-and-identity|title=Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender and Identity - Exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in Birmingham|website=ArtRabbit}}
• Rock, Funk, Punk - {{ill|Fotografie Forum Frankfurt|de}} (2017) {{cite web|url=https://www.fffrankfurt.org/home/|title=Home - FFFrankfurt|website=www.fffrankfurt.org}}
• Youth - D Museum, Seoul, Korea (2017) {{cite web|url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2020/05/145_223811.html|title=Photographers capture rawness of youth|date=12 February 2017|website=koreatimes}}
• Collaborate at Free Range - Truman Brewery (2018)
• Sweet Harmony Rave|Today - Saatchi Gallery, London (2019)https://www.saatchigallery.com/art/sweet_harmony.php {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709203557/https://www.saatchigallery.com/art/sweet_harmony.php |date=9 July 2019 }} Saatch Gallery: 'Sweet Harmony Rave|Today'
• Physical Distancing - Electrowerkz, London (2021) {{Cite web|url=https://www.electrowerkz.co.uk/physical-distancing.html|title=Physical Distancing|website=Electrowerkz}}
• The Horror Show: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain - Somerset House (2022) {{Cite web|url=https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/press/horror-show-twisted-tale-modern-britain|title=THE HORROR SHOW! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain|date=29 June 2022}}

Ridgers' photography is held in the following collection:

• National Portrait Gallery, London.

Ridgers is a keen amateur poker player after developing his taste for the game when he covered the World Series of Poker in 2000 for Loaded magazine, photographing the event and the participation in it of the British champion Dave Ulliott ('Devilfish').{{cite web |url=http://www.derekridgers.com/index/module/media/pId/102/id/942/category/gallery%7CPortraits/start/0/The-Devilfish;-Dave-Ulliott;-P.html |title=Derek Ridgers |publisher=Derek Ridgers |accessdate=12 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709014810/http://www.derekridgers.com/index/module/media/pId/102/id/942/category/gallery%7CPortraits/start/0/The-Devilfish;-Dave-Ulliott;-P.html |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}

Ridgers is a lifelong fan of the English football team, Tottenham Hotspur, is a Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust board member, and has designed the Trust ads and literature.{{cite web |url=http://www.tottenhamtrust.com/members.asp |title=Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust – Members of the Board |publisher=Tottenhamtrust.com |date=30 October 2008 |accessdate=12 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100131071229/http://www.tottenhamtrust.com/members.asp |archive-date=31 January 2010 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website|www.derekridgers.com}}
• [https://www.theguardian.com/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] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120203110134/http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/howweare/ |date=3 February 2012 }}
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120409222648/http://www.sabotagetimes.com/life/skinheads-1979-1984/ Skinheads 1979–1984]}} – Slideshow of Ridgers' skinhead photographs and interview

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridgers, Derek}}

Category:1952 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century English male artists

Category:20th-century English photographers

Category:21st-century English male artists

Category:21st-century English photographers

Category:Artists from the London Borough of Hounslow

Category:British fashion photographers

Category:British portrait photographers

Category:English art directors

Category:Fetish photographers

Category:New Musical Express

Category:People from Chiswick

Category:Photographers from London

Category:Punk rock

Category:Rock music photographers