Shirley Baker - Creative Process

Photography has always been my second love after fashion, I studied it in college and if fashion didn't work out I would definitely pursue a photographic career. My favourite photographers are the names such as Rankin - (an obvious one), Robert Mapplethorpe, Fan ho, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton.

I have already explored the creative processes of all these photographers and send to go back to them and reference them in a lot of my work, for this blog I wanted to explore a new photographer and a new style.

I chose Shirley Baker after falling in love with her 1960s portraits of children in the uk, showcased at the Tate Britain. Shirley was as northern girl - (love it) and grew up around the Salford area, she tried to pursue a career in photographer but was limited to where she could photograph and what she could photograph due to the restrictions on women joining the unions in the 1950, preventing her from getting press cards. She opted for freelance photography as she was faced with less constraints and more freedom to what and where she wanted to photograph.

Her most famous collection - working class in Salford, the collection that inspired me captured the working class from the 1960- through to the 1970s. I says she felt compelled to represent these communities and described the project as an obsession. Throughout her practise she questioned her ethics and felt 'she was reflecting a life she wasn't part of'.

Her creative process wasn't from a certain concept but rather from a documentary situation. She saw a life that wasn't seen to most of the world I felt compelled to photograph and share it with the rest of the world, documenting it for it to be seen now in the Tate Britain in 2022. Her work was fluid and she never staged her images, all photographs seen were from general conversations with children in Salford and just pure humane connections.