In Photos: Glasgow’s DIY club scene through the lens of local creative Jock Thomson

In a new collaboration with MPB, Crack Magazine has commissioned three emerging photographers to create original photo series documenting the communities and cultural spaces that matter most to them. The platform – a global marketplace for buying, selling, and trading used photo and video gear – provided each photographer with a £1,000 grant and access to equipment to support the creation of their work.

The photographer and DRIP co-founder documents the energy of his city’s queer club scene with photographs that feel intimate and alive.

In the work of Glasgow-born artist Jock Thomson, nightlife is established as an embodied experience – a world built from sweat, friction, and the carnal heat of bodies meeting in the dark. As the organiser and co-founder of Glasgow’s queer party DRIP, he is embedded in the networks that keep the city’s underground scene functioning: the volunteers, performers, DJs and regulars who maintain spaces that are too often temporary or working under intense financial pressure to stay afloat.

His latest series, commissioned by Crack Magazine and MPB, was shot at DRIP, Scandal and Ponyboy. Taking his photos from within the party, Thomson frames the club not simply as a place of pleasure, but a sanctuary of self-expression. The resulting images have a physical closeness – chests, arms, mouths, latex, wet skin – all caught with a flash that refuses to soften the immediacy of the encounter. Partygoers perform, of course – drag, fetishwear, DIY outfits made with great care. Thomson’s images feel like flashbacks to the night, and their force lies in an insistence that these moments, however fleeting, are part of the city’s cultural memory and deserve to be held as such.

“I’m always coming home from a night out with about 20 new pals,” the artist says. “But what I really love about that scene is how open it is. People just let you in. Everyone’s a character; everyone’s performing. But at the same time, everyone’s being completely themselves.”

“I’ve always been really drawn to the DIY side of Glasgow’s nightlife. The sweaty basement raves, the weird and wonderful live performances,” he continues. “I think people often underestimate [the city] as a creative hub in the UK, but we really do have that DIY ethos. People here just make things happen. Everyone’s hustling. You better believe that DJ is also a drag performer, is also doing their own makeup, and making their own outfit from scratch.”

“I’ve been shooting queer nightlife here for years. For this project, I wanted to showcase the energy of the Glasgow scene. You know – the messiness, the tenderness, and the absolute joy that happens when people come together in queer spaces.”

Look through Thomson’s photos below. Check out Mariana Pires’ documentation of London’s Paraíso School of Samba, too, and look out for our final story shot by Irene Haro next week.