Brian Homer obituary | Pictures

My pal Brian Homer, who has died aged 80, was a photographer, designer and entrepreneur with enduring affect in his residence metropolis of Birmingham.

In the late Seventies, together with the photographers John Reardon and Derek Bishton, he based the well-regarded photography magazine Ten.8, the topic of an exhibition at New Art Gallery Walsall that ran till earlier this month.

In 1979, involved about how Handsworth residents have been portrayed within the media, the three invited passersby exterior their workplace to take self-portraits with a specifically arrange digital camera, towards a plain background with out contextual signifiers. These group self-portraits grew to become often known as the Handsworth Self Portraits, and the negatives are preserved within the Bodleian, Oxford.

Born in Cheltenham, Brian was the son of Catherine (nee Redding) and Howard Homer; the household moved to Birmingham, the place his father labored as a mechanical engineer within the automotive business, when Brian was 5. After King Edward VI Five Ways grammar college, he started working as an apprentice for the Central Electricity Generating Board. As a part of the apprenticeship he enrolled on {an electrical} engineering course at Aston University, however that was quickly deserted for extra artistic pursuits.

In the late Nineteen Sixties he joined the National League of Young Liberals, coined the “Red Guard” by the press, which was the place I met him. The group collapsed, however Brian’s libertarian commitments by no means did.

Brian was all the time a superb communicator. He was a co-founder of the group magazines Grapevine and Broadside within the mid-70s, discovering that he labored properly with Reardon on these initiatives, in addition to Ten.8. In the early 80s he began a profitable design company, Homer Creative, working out of Birmingham’s jewelry quarter. Working with public sector organisations and commerce unions, he all the time thought his most essential work was with Nupe (National Union of Public Education) and Unison Education.

An Aston Villa fan, Brian displayed a dedication that was unaffected by cup wins or relegation. In the the 2000s he and I based a fanzine, Villa Matters, that includes followers and gamers together with members of the European Cup profitable workforce.

Brian additionally had a love of recent jazz, and labored with Birmingham Jazz in selling stay music throughout town and past, whereas additionally photographing many musicians. His images portfolio illustrated Birmingham creating past an industrial metropolis, which his personal life demonstrated.

He married his longterm accomplice, Val Jenner, in 1999, and he or she survives him.