Legendary photographer John Claridge died on Sunday aged eighty-two. Growing up in West Ham, he photographed the East End in the sixties and took more pictures there than anyone else in that era, but his work covered many areas of practice. In 2018 he and I had a telephone conversation concerning his friend Bill Jay, the editor of Creative Camera magazine as part of my research for the film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay. This is an edit of that conversation based on Jay, which also reveals Claridge’s approach to photography and life. His generosity, humour and passion for photography. Claridge was a straight talking Londoner and therefore this recording contains strong language.

Claridge was born in Plaistow, Essex. His father worked in the London docks, and sold alcohol in New York during Prohibition. He was also a bare-knuckle boxer in the dock areas in both New York and the East End of London; Claridge also boxed. His mother was a shirt machinist working in Roman Road, Bow. Aged 8, Claridge saw a plastic camera at an East End funfair and had to have it. A few years later, he saved up enough money from his paper round to buy a proper camera to record the world he was growing up in. From the age of 13, he started to buy jazz records, and it remained a lifetime obsession. He had no formal training as a photographer but aged 15, began working for the McCann Erickson advertising agency in their Photography and Design department. He worked under Robert Brownjohn, the art director known for his James Bond title sequences, who encouraged Claridge to have his first exhibition, of photographs on the East End, aged 16. In 1961 he left to become assistant to American photographer David Montgomery and in 1964 he opened his own studio in London. His first commissions were for Management Today, Queen, Town, Harper’s, and Nova magazines. He went on to work for many companies, but particularly for tourist boards and car companies. By the age of twenty-three, as well as having a home on the Essex marshes and an E-type Jaguar, he had written, produced and shot a short film titled Five Soldiers. An American Civil War tale which, when shown on a university campus in the US, caused a riot among the students. The film was eventually banned but made its way onto the underground circuit. From 1976 to 1989, Claridge lived and had his darkroom in a flat on Frith Street, Soho, above the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. In April 2018, The Association of Photographers included Claridge in its 50th anniversary exhibition of some the world’s most respected photographers. His work is held in the collections of The Arts Council of Great Britain, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has won over 700 awards for his editorial and advertising work made in the 1960s. which was published in the book East End in 2016. Clardige began making his iconic jazz portraits series while living in his flat above Ronnie Scott’s. Having grown up in a boxing family, he made over 100 photographs of members of the London Ex-Boxer’s Association, which were serially published by The Gentle Author, 2012-2013. Of his Soho Faces project including over 500 portraits (2004-2017) he said, “I decided to document the customers at The French in earnest. For me, it was the one place in Soho that still held its Bohemian character, where people truly chose to share time and conversation, and I became aware that many I had once chinked glasses with were no longer around.” He has also published five books: South American Portfolio (1982), One Hundred Photographs (1988), Seven Days in Havana (2000), 8 Hours (2002), and In Shadows I Dream (2003) alongside a number of publications with Cafe Royal Books. He lived in London and the South of France.

© Grant Scott 2026