John Riddy

From Painting to Photography — Choosing an Existing Place Instead of Starting from a Blank Surface

Riddy began taking and printing photographs as a teenager and studied painting at Chelsea School of Art. He has recalled that after graduation he never felt comfortable beginning with a blank canvas; working from objects and places that already existed suited him better^*24 He later photographed works in the studios of sculptors including Anthony Caro and has described the routine use of a large-format camera in that work as a practical education for his own photography^*1 Frith Street Gallery likewise traces his move from painting into photography and his long-term engagement with architecture and place^*22Riddy’s move toward photography cannot be explained by an interest in place alone. The camera allowed him to begin with an existing building or street, choose a viewpoint and frame, and still admit details he had not made—light, dirt, signs, passing objects—rather than inventing an image from a blank surface.

Urban Photography in the 1990s — Choosing Description over Event

During the 1990s, Riddy began photographing buildings and streets in sustained series. The Government Art Collection describes his work through a continuing interest in architecture, cities, and place^*2 London (Marylebone Road) retains the name of the street photographed as its title^*3 London (Garrick Street) similarly treats a specific street as an individual work^*4 Riddy has since described this work in terms of “description” rather than “storytelling”: instead of imposing a narrative on the city, the photograph records what he selected and where he placed the camera on site^*24 Muizenberg, also in the Government Art Collection, is another early work that retains the specific name of a place outside London^*5.

Working in Series — Deciding What to Keep through Comparison

In an Artdoc interview, Riddy explained that the “decisive moment” is not his point of departure and that his decisions are made over time^*24 In the Sky series, including Sky 14 (Camberwell), he preserves the sky as a sequence of numbered works instead of condensing variations in cloud cover and color into one dramatic instant^*6 In the same interview he described the print as both a window onto a place and a physical surface structured by color, tone, and composition^*24 Michael Fried likewise discusses Riddy’s work through the differences in composition and light that become clearer when several prints are compared rather than viewed in isolation^*23The series keeps a single decision at the moment of exposure from becoming the definitive answer. Riddy makes several images from the same place or subject, compares their differences after printing, and then decides which photographs to retain. Allowing judgment to continue after the exposure is consistent with his preference for describing a place without deciding its story in advance.

Le Gray, Hokusai, and Ruskin — Different Historical References for Different Series

Riddy draws on different historical works for different series. A 1994 exhibition situated his photographs in relation to nineteenth-century French photography and twentieth-century American photography; later projects took John Ruskin’s autobiography, Hokusai’s woodblock prints, and Gustave Le Gray’s photographs as specific points of departure^*7 Riddy has said that he did not know the Düsseldorf School when he began. In architectural photography he was looking at Werner Mantz and Ezra Stoller, and only later became aware of similarities with the Bechers, Thomas Struth, and Andreas Gursky^*24These historical references are not decorative devices meant to make the photographs appear classical. As with Le Gray in Palermo, they provide a way to examine how an earlier photographer framed a particular place and then photograph the same city under different conditions in the present. A 1996 Frith Street Gallery exhibition brought together sites with markedly different light and interiors—a roadside café in the Pyrenees, a psychiatric hospital in Tunisia, and disused port architecture in Valencia. Valencia (Port) contains a closed port building, an aging mural, a Benetton advertisement, and Republican graffiti within the same frame^*8.

Ideal World — Viewing Modernist Ideals through Weathered Buildings

Ideal World looks at the rational ideals of modern architecture through buildings as they appear after use, including stains and weathering. The 2000 exhibition text centers on the utopian ambitions of modernist architecture, including Le Corbusier, and on the subsequent effects of weathering and time^*9 Recent Places likewise photographs individual buildings together with the environments in which they now stand^*10By retaining stains, repairs, vegetation, and changes in the surroundings that newly completed architectural photography often excludes, Riddy makes the design ideal and the building after use available for comparison within the same photograph.

Sky and Low Relief — Comparing the Sky and London at Night

Sky repeats the sky as a subject, while Low Relief photographs London buildings at night or under low light. Frith Street’s Skies exhibition presented slight differences in weather and illumination as numbered photographs, turning the sky from background into an object of comparison^*11 Low Relief was presented as a series in which London architecture emerges as a flattened field under low illumination, emphasizing details of facades and the distribution of artificial light over the recognizability of landmarks^*12The descriptive capacity of the large-format camera is used in Sky to compare changes in cloud cover and color, and in Low Relief to compare windows, wall surfaces, and artificial light from image to image.

Palermo — Returning to the Same City for Three Years with Le Gray as a Reference

For Palermo, Riddy did not settle on an image of the city during a single trip; he returned over roughly three years. Exhibition materials cite Gustave Le Gray’s 1860 photographs of Palermo as a point of reference and describe the project as a contemporary reconsideration of the historic city’s architecture, sea, and light^*13 Adrian Searle, writing in The Guardian, argued that the extraordinary level of detail makes daily changes in rubbish, graffiti, cars, and lights visible on the same street, leaving the question of “why this day?” unresolved^*25 Riddy has explained that he switched to black and white because he felt color was too strong and prevented other qualities of the place from coming through^*24 Half-light similarly uses the transition between light and darkness, separating photographic description from the requirement that a place be shown brightly and clearly^*14In Palermo, duration is produced through three years of repeated visits and editing, not through long exposure.

Horizon — Two Years from One Viewpoint, Nine Final Photographs

Horizon was made over two years from a single fixed viewpoint at Blakeney Point in Norfolk and edited down to nine photographs^*15 Riddy has said that although he had visited the area for more than thirty years, beginning in the early 1990s, Horizon was the first time he photographed it as a body of work^*1The composition remains nearly constant: salt marsh in the foreground, a shingle ridge, the Watch House, and sky. Seasons, clouds, and light change. The procedure itself—returning to the same camera position for two years and selecting only nine final images—distinguishes Horizon from a landscape series made in a single visit.

Books and Exhibitions — Giving a Series an Order of Reading

Riddy organizes his work into series by city or subject and has presented them in books as well as exhibitions. Frith Street Gallery’s John Riddy: Photographs brings several urban and landscape series together in one volume^*17 Steidl’s Photographs also gathers work made over an extended period, allowing architectural, sky, and landscape series to be compared within one publication^*18 Lawrence Markey’s biography likewise shows that exhibitions since the 1990s have repeatedly been organized around named series^*19 The gallery’s publication history lists Rome (1999), 8 SKIES (2004), Views from Shin-Fuji (2010), and Palermo (2013), showing that individual cities and series have also been given separate books^*20 A 2015 Frieze review discusses an exhibition that paired Riddy’s photographs of South Africa’s Cape Peninsula with drawings by James Castle, comparing specific forms in the images such as rough vegetation and fences^*21.

Similar to the Becher School in Appearance, but without a Fixed Photographic Rule

Riddy’s frontal viewpoints, large-format cameras, and sparsely populated urban scenes can resemble the Bechers, the Düsseldorf School, and New Topographics. He has said that his own starting points were architectural photographers such as Werner Mantz and Ezra Stoller, along with painting and sculpture, and that he arrived at “a similar place by a different route” from the Becher school^*24 Nor does he apply one photographic rule across every series in the manner of the Bechers’ typologies. In Palermo he moved from color to black and white because blue skies and ocher tones overwhelmed other elements; in Horizon he repeated one viewpoint; in Sky he removed architecture itself from the frame^*24 De Pont Museum’s collection page likewise lists six works from Palermo, five from New York (Black Star), and London (Rail Sidings Road 1 and 2) under the same artist, confirming his long-standing use of separate series for different cities^*26.In the 2026 Winter Landscape, Riddy moves away from his earlier tendency to avoid people in urban scenes, at times working with a handheld camera and bringing individuals, crowds, and everyday activity back into the frame^*16.Because his equipment and treatment of the human figure change within his own work, his career cannot be reduced to a single style of quiet, large-format urban photography.