As an official photographer for The Militant, David Sinclair captured many key social and political events through the 1980s and 1990s. His stunning captures of Liverpool during a time when the city rallied together in the face of Thatcherism and adversity.
As a working press photographer, David captured everything from citywide protests across Britain to intimate portraits of the people growing up in communities affected by political and social change.
Photo © David Sinclair.
David: “I left Alsop Comprehensive School for Boys in 1976, halfway through my A levels. Disenchanted, I went to stack shelves with a couple of mates at Kwiksave on County Road. After three years of working, I returned to education. I enrolled in college studying interior design, then moving on to Liverpool College of Art, learning to draw under the brilliant Nicholas Horsefield”.
Tate & Lyle
“Whilst studying, I’d moved out of my family house into a ‘hard to let’ council flat in the rundown dock area of Liverpool 5. Derelict industrial buildings, including Tate & Lyle sugar refiners, British American Tobacco, Bibby food processing and miles of abandoned dock buildings, surrounded me. I wanted to paint my environment, so I started taking photos as a sort of note taking and did make some colour landscape collages”.
Photo © David Sinclair.
Post-Industrial
“When a friend introduced me to black and white photography, I built my own darkroom. I started making prints with far more drama and humanity that I could get into a painting. I would spend many hours walking around Liverpool, exploring empty places like Council estates and going into derelict dock buildings, wandering the streets taking photos, mostly housing and post-industrial landscape – but it was in a time when kids would pester you to take their photos”.
Photo © David Sinclair.
Attitude
“A fundamental difference between the time I took these photos and today is the general attitude towards photographing children. Back then, there was little or no paranoia compared to now. Kids on the street would approach me, asking if I was from the Echo. I’d say no, but they’d insist I’d have to take a group shot, and I did, so they’d leave me alone. Some of these shots are now my favourite photos, and I take little credit for them because the kids’ insistence made me take them.”
Gallery
Photo © David Sinclair.
Photo © David Sinclair.
Photo © David Sinclair.
Photo © David Sinclair.
All images © Dave Sinclair, all rights reserved.
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