“When I arrived, I was sitting on a low wall just inside the entrance, with another English photographer friend who also didn’t have a photo pass,” says Ridgers. “We were watching all the famous faces arrive. When Mick Jagger turned up, all the paparazzi—including ones he would have known very well over the years—were shouting, ‘Hey, Mick! Mick, over here!’ at him, and he just ignored them all.”

“When he saw us, he came over and warmly greeted my photographer friend. My friend stood up and got a nice big hug from Mick Jagger who, without waiting for any sort of response, then just turned and walked off. My friend said he’d never met Mick Jagger before and didn’t even like the Rolling Stones. It seemed quite odd behavior. In the days afterward, we came to the conclusion that, since my friend looked a little bit like Douglas Adams, that must have been who Mick Jagger thought he was greeting.”

While it helps to be polite in the world of lensing celebrities, persistence is equally important. “I’d never even have become a photographer in the first place if I was at all put off by words from doormen like, ‘Sorry, mate, it’s a private party tonight, you’re not coming in,’ or, ‘You’re not dressed right,’” he says.

How did he differentiate himself from the notorious British paparazzi? “It’s really what one might call the $64,000 question in photography,” he replies. “Some of those guys were earning ten times what I was getting back then, but I’d still rather have been shooting the more interesting—to me!—people on the margins.” Throughout the book, ogling bystanders, nonchalant locals, and wannabes shooting their shot at stardom all add to the surrealist spectacle.

Daryl Hannah.

Photo: Derek Ridgers, courtesy of IDEA.