My friend Brian Homer, who has died aged 80, was a photographer, designer and entrepreneur with enduring influence in his home city of Birmingham.
In the late 1970s, along with the photographers John Reardon and Derek Bishton, he founded the well-regarded photography magazine Ten.8, the subject of an exhibition at New Art Gallery Walsall that ran until earlier this month.
In 1979, concerned about how Handsworth residents were portrayed in the media, the three invited passersby outside their office to take self-portraits with a specially set up camera, against a plain background without contextual signifiers. These community self-portraits became known as the Handsworth Self Portraits, and the negatives are preserved in the Bodleian, Oxford.
Born in Cheltenham, Brian was the son of Catherine (nee Redding) and Howard Homer; the family moved to Birmingham, where his father worked as a mechanical engineer in the automotive industry, when Brian was five. After King Edward VI Five Ways grammar school, he began working as an apprentice for the Central Electricity Generating Board. As part of the apprenticeship he enrolled on an electrical engineering course at Aston University, but that was soon abandoned for more creative pursuits.
In the late 1960s he joined the National League of Young Liberals, coined the “Red Guard” by the press, which was where I met him. The group collapsed, but Brian’s libertarian commitments never did.
Brian was always an excellent communicator. He was a co-founder of the community magazines Grapevine and Broadside in the mid-70s, finding that he worked well with Reardon on these projects, as well as Ten.8. In the early 80s he started a successful design agency, Homer Creative, operating out of Birmingham’s jewellery quarter. Working with public sector organisations and trade unions, he always thought his most important work was with Nupe (National Union of Public Education) and Unison Education.
An Aston Villa fan, Brian displayed a commitment that was unaffected by cup wins or relegation. In the the 2000s he and I founded a fanzine, Villa Matters, featuring fans and players including members of the European Cup winning team.
Brian also had a love of modern jazz, and worked with Birmingham Jazz in promoting live music across the city and beyond, while also photographing many musicians. His photography portfolio illustrated Birmingham developing beyond an industrial city, which his own life demonstrated.
He married his longterm partner, Val Jenner, in 1999, and she survives him.
