Born in Salford in 1932, Shirley Baker was documentary photographer who captured life in the north of England from the 1950s onwards.

Baker studied photography at Manchester College of Technology. She went on to teach photography at Salford College of Art from the 1960s. Between these lessons, she explored the streets with her camera in her bag and took photographs of the semi-derelict slums of social housing in the area that was being demolished. This body of work spans 15 years.

Her style of street photography was influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank.