Duncan ridgley

It all started when a friend gave me a copy of Homecoming by Don McCullin. I was 15. There was no going back to thinking I will do a normal job and live a normal life.

20 years of shooting professionally for newspapers & magazines. I now cover stories I find interesting, commercial bookings and my reportage photography tours.

Fleet St

I caught the tail end of Fleet St’s Golden Age

Asked for a Zeiss Ranger Finder for my 16th Birthday. Photographed parties we gatecrashed and learned how to print from reading instructions on the back of the box.

Started out working for free delivering prints to Fleet St on my skateboard. Printing negs straight from the wash to get the first editions.

Freelance Paparazzi. Specialised in Diana and whoever the biggest stars were in town. I started selling mainly to the Sun and ending up working for them and New of the World full time.

Colour was the new big thing. Shooting features whilst still papping. IRA bombs, police sieges to the lastest women’s fashion ideas.

Magazines & Design Agencies

Hassleblads, lighting and respect from my subjects

5 mins with a star or CEO to ” A day in the life” of a Chef, Prison Officer, or Palm Reader. All shot on 120 transparency and 35mm Kodachrome.

Cosmopolitan, Company Magazine, Woman’s Own. I was known as the guy who could photograph real people.

Management Today, Business Week, Director Magazine. Cater & Hotel Keeper, Hair Dressers Journal, Campain, PR Week, and more. You would shoot the cover, DPS, sometimes up to six pages of pics in an hour’s shoot. No digital backs, a few polaroids, and your imagination.

Sunday Times, Sunday Times Magazine, Mail on Sunday. Was more for the PR than making a living. I would cover the big events but in a more reportage style for the Sunday Supplements.

Unilever, Legal & General, 3i Group, Glaxo, Wimpey, Central Office of Information (Gov), Shell, Hill & Knolton, and more. Editorial / Reportage style covering events, annual reports, and in-house magazines.

I worked for many Design Agencies producing brochures shooting mainly real people (not models) on location.

Pappics

“You have the most famous, undercover motorbike in all of Bucharest!”

The largest-selling Tabloid Newspaper in Romania is Click. I built a team that provided them with all of their Paparazzi content. The record was, I think, 17 front pages in one month.

Maramures

I started guiding photographers who were running photography tours.

Home was a remote village in Northern Transylvania. Emersed in the local culture, my camera and me became accepted. Understanding the Gypsy culture and building relationships with several Gypsy Villages was a big part of the Photography Tours I used to run there.

Egypt

From the back streets of Cairo to the Berber Farmers of Siwa Oasis

I was a tour guide in Egypt for around 10 years. I know my way around and understand the culture. I speak enough to get by. I am excited about the tour I am putting together for Egypt. It will be very different from any other itinerary you have seen and will knock the spots off the National Geographic tour for Egypt.

India

Sri Lanka didn’t work out for me, so India it is 🙂

6 months traveling in India and Bangladesh. See the “Head Hunters of Nagaland”. This intrigued me and is the basis of the tour I will be running here.

The North of England

15 women dressed as the Devil, bursting out of their fishnet stockings is normal in my town

The Industrial North and eccentric working-class holidaymakers. An interesting mix and a photography tour I am looking forward to putting together.

I am also doing commercial work here and covering stories that take my interest.