The photographer Shirley Baker who photographed the changing Manchester and Salford during the 1960’s and early 1970’s has died at the age of 82.
Born in Salford in 1932, she was educated at Manchester’s school of technology and went on to study in London and the University of Derby.
She has worked as an industrial photographer, and as a freelance writer and photographer for various magazines, books and newspapers.
One writer said of her
“When Shirley Baker began photographing the streets of her native Salford, it seemed that no-one was interested in recording the human story of these soon-to-be demolished communities: old ladies sitting on doorsteps in a row of condemned houses, men with handcarts searching for refuse to be recycled, children playing amongst rubble and abandoned cars. That she chose to preserve these moments on photographic film seems now like the only perceptive response to a fast vanishing environment.”
She spoke to the Guardian two years ago saying
People were turfed out of their homes. Some squatted in old buildings, trying to hang on to the life they knew. They didn’t have much and things were decided for them. A lot of people had dropped through the net and didn’t even know they were entitled to benefits. Some needed help but no one had even heard of a psychiatrist.
She would later turn her lens to the citizens of Tokyo, The South of France and New York and published a number of books showcasing her work.
Her last exhibition took place in 2013 at Oldham Gallery.
