Comments on: Homer Sykes in Spitalfields

By: Carmen Muscat

Carmen Muscat — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 15:11:02 +0000

I remember these days well as a child. The national front on the corner of Bacon street Brick lane Sunday market. I remember the gents shoe shop on the corner particularly well as my father who was a stall holder selling records stood on that very corner for 20 years.
Great photo!

By: essexcockney

essexcockney — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 23:26:25 +0000

Homer there was something magical about b/w shot on film photography that is missing these days ,, digital !!!!! just point and press, hundreds of the same image to choose from and not one of them is any good ,,,,I only shoot b/w film the magic starts in the camera and continues in the darkroom. . I have been enjoying homers work since I first see some pictures of he,s in the BJP
annual 1972 ,we are very lucky in the uk, we have so many great photographers to choose from ..

I am no were as good as Homer but I bet I have enjoyed photography just as much as him ..
I have my own website with some of my photographs that I have taken over the years
all the best
http://www.essexcockney.com

By: Homer Sykes

Homer Sykes — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 09:19:52 +0000

Thanks for all the positive comments. Yes I am still around, and I remember well working for Adrianne LeMan, at the Illustrated London News. However these days I spend less time photographing, but a great deal of time work on my British Archive, work primarily from the 1970s through to the 1990s, plus some new documentary work as well.

Once a Year is now a ‘rare’ book, partly because, though they printed a thousand copies, the publisher only had 200 copies bound. I met the printer at a lunch at Bert Hardy’s home, near Westerham in Kent, in the late 1980s, and he informed me that all the remaining ‘flat’ sheets had been thrown out a couple of year previously – they were clogging up the works.

One day I hope to re-edit and then re-publish that volume.

By: Cherub

Cherub — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:49:11 +0000

Sad to think that nearly 30 years after the war lot of people were still living in such poverty, there is loneliness and despair in the faces of some of the old here. As a teenager in the 70s I don’t actually remember it as a very happy time – grey, grimy, strikes everywhere. Started work in ’77 and then remember when we had the rubbish piling up, dead people not being buried and the army “green goddesses” on stand by if there was a fire (I worked at my local town hall and they used to sit at the ready in the square). Horrible, God forbid we ever go back to that.

By: Chris F

Chris F — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:08:33 +0000

The streets of London ‘Paved with gold!’ There is something sad about the old lady selling her bits & bobs from the pram. Was she recently widowed? Did her husband drink away his wages? There’s a story there…….

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:10:24 +0000

Great stuff!

By: Adrianne LeMan

Adrianne LeMan — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:12:26 +0000

Good to see that Homer is still around and taking photographs. I commissioned him sometimes, when I was Art Editor of The Illustrated London News, in the 1970s.

By: Kate Shrewsday

Kate Shrewsday — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:09:46 +0000

Fantastic images. Thanks. Must look up the book!

By: Yeshen

Yeshen — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:32:50 +0000

wonderful images.

By: Greg Tingey

Greg Tingey — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:13:07 +0000

Homer Sykes, eh?
Many years ago, he produced a classic book: “Once a Year”
A catalogue (or claendar) of British Folk Customs – I have a copy.
Good to know he’s still doing good work.