Remembering the work of Shirley Baker

I was at a talk recently where it was said that there no places for a discussion or reporting about serious photography. In some ways I agree, newspapers have yielded to the might of the blog but each of our major broadsheets still feature photography, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent , The Denver Post,  On the BBC website Phil Coomes writes so well and brings new work to our eyes. This week he has an article about Shirley Baker, a photographer I had never heard of before.

One of the leading photographers of the past century, Shirley Baker, sadly died towards the end of September. Here Tom Gillmor, of the Mary Evans Picture Library, who are guardians of her archive, pays tribute to her work.

Shirley first contacted Mary Evans Picture Library in early 2008. From looking through the first few printed pages she sent to me, featuring a mass of small contact photographs, I was immediately struck by a body of work of terrific quality and amazing potential. Shirley’s work in Salford and Manchester (shot mainly between 1960 and 1973) captured a time of rapid social and economic change in the lives of working class people in Manchester and Salford.

Read all of the article here