Stressing that he never considered himself above his peers, Ridgers further recalled that he also never felt any sense of kinship with them, and the book concludes with an image of some photographers holding and discussing one of his images, oblivious to his presence. “The whole time I went to the festival, I don’t think I had one conversation with any of the other photographers,” he said. “They shouted at me occasionally, for getting in their way, but that’s hardly a conversation. It sounds terrible, I know, but I just ignored them. I’m competitive and very focused — if I’m standing around chatting, I may be missing a good photograph.”
In “Cannes” however, the mood is one of debauchery with a light-hearted sensibility. “I’m serious about my work but this is not a particularly serious photobook,” said Ridgers, acknowledging the nature of its contents. “Most of the photographs are frivolous, and some are simply outrageous. These days, because of the French law of droit à l’image (a right to one’s image) it’s harder to publish photographs of people in public without their permission — how that works in the era of the camera phone, I have no idea. My photographs are testament to what fun, crazy and at times, ludicrous, things happened back then.”
Stressing that he never considered himself above his peers, Ridgers further recalled that he also never felt any sense of kinship with them, and the book concludes with an image of some photographers holding and discussing one of his images, oblivious to his presence. “The whole time I went to the festival, I don’t think I had one conversation with any of the other photographers,” he said. “They shouted at me occasionally, for getting in their way, but that’s hardly a conversation. It sounds terrible, I know, but I just ignored them. I’m competitive and very focused — if I’m standing around chatting, I may be missing a good photograph.
In “Cannes” however, the mood is one of debauchery with a light-hearted sensibility. “I’m serious about my work but this is not a particularly serious photobook,” said Ridgers, acknowledging the nature of its contents. “Most of the photographs are frivolous, and some are simply outrageous. These days, because of the French law of droit à l’image (a right to one’s image) it’s harder to publish photographs of people in public without their permission — how that works in the era of the camera phone, I have no idea. My photographs are testament to what fun, crazy and at times, ludicrous, things happened back then.”