Derek Ridgers, Cannes is a typically risqué throwback photobook to a decade of the Cannes Festival when entirely male photographers gathered round almost entirely naked female starlets on the beach every day. Derek Ridgers, the acclaimed, influential and, dare we say it, veteran photographer of British music and club culture, in his greater wisdom, mostly photographed the photographers.
Ridgers first went to the Cannes Film Festival for NME in 1984 and was astounded by the media circus surrounding the event. Returning many times for over a decade, his work captures everyone involved in the event in this pre-social media era, from the other photographers (including the likes of Helmut Newton at work) to many of the most famous movie stars of the twentieth century.
IDEA Books, 96pp, 25cm x 20cm, illustrated hardcover, first edition of 500, 2025
