Brian Homer Collection

Brian Homer is a photographer, designer and writer. From 1971 to 1979 he co-founded and worked on Grapevine and Broadside Magazines in Birmingham. He was part of the original Handsworth Self Portrait project with Derek Bishton and John Reardon in 1979, with whom he also co-founded Ten8 international photography magazine. He has co-curated many self-portrait photography projects including 1000 images for the opening of the Library of Birmingham and a project for the 50th Anniversary of Telford. From 1978 to 2015 he ran a design agency and he is now an active photographer documenting the jazz scene. He is a member of the Jazz Research Cluster at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and is collaborating with Dr Pedro Cravinho on Everyday Jazz Life a project exploring jazz musicians’ lives and how they make a living.

The Brian Homer Collection

The Brian Homer Collection at the ADM Archive comprises of a full set of Grapevine and Broadside Magazines together with a copy of Brum Book. Brian co-founded, with Trevor Fisher, Grapevine a what's on and news magazine based in Birmingham. Run mainly by volunteers who did everything from writing, design and layout to distribution Grapevine reached a peak of 3000 sales and ran from 1971 to 1975. In 1975 he edited Brum Book a guide book to Birmingham before co-founding another magazine similar to Grapevine -  Broadside which ran from 1976 to 1979.

The basic idea for the magazines was to provide an alternative to the main media of the time which was felt to be failing to cover community, political and cultural activities in the city. After initial issues in 1971 that featured mainly a what’s on guide Grapevine increasingly featured news and Broadside featured more news and features.