For my work on UK youth cultures I wanted to draw from real photos of people from within the cultures to make sure I got an accurate idea of how the people would have actually looked and that I didn't fall victim to false stereotypes. It was quite tricky to find a good amount of photos for each subculture, especially the earlier ones (anything pre-glam really). This may be down to photography not being as big or good back then or maybe the members of those earlier cultures were less concerned with getting photos of themselves out there. I found quite a few good photos on pinterest but in general I was able to find a lot more from the Glam to Goth segment of my timeline.

This is mainly because while reading an issue of Varoom magazine I came upon an article on another magazine called The Face, a music, fashion and culture magazine from the 80s which in it's early days focused on the sorts of youth culture that I am looking at. In the article it mentioned several photographers who worked for The Face such as: Derek Ridgers, Pennie Smith, Kevin Cummings and Shelia Rock. The work of these photographers, and others from The Face formed the basis of my reference material for this project and is why most of my work is based in the subcultures of the 80s.

Derek Ridgers book London Youth: 1978- 1987 was especially useful for this project covering a range of youth culture and including dates for all photos so I know exactly where they fit in with my time line.

My work became a lot more culture based and less class based as I started to create more work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the work doesn't have the original meaning I wanted when I started this project and is now more of a map of 70s-80s youth culture and taste which I actually prefer as it has allowed me to make more varying and impact-ful work.