Homer Warwick Sykes (born January 1949) is a Canadian-born British documentary photographer whose career has included personal projects and landscape photography.
Early life and education Sykes's father, also named Homer Warwick Sykes, was a Canadian-born American of English extraction who worked for the China National Aviation Corporation in Shanghai; his mother, Helen Grimmitt, was born in Hong Kong but her family emigrated to Canada in the early 1930s. The couple were married in Shanghai in August 1947; but in June 1948, at an early stage of his wife's pregnancy, Homer was killed in an accident at Lunghua airfield. In September 1948, Helen returned from Shanghai to her family home in Vancouver, where her son was born in January 1949.Graham Harrison, "Homer Sykes", Photo Histories, 30 November 2007, revised 21 December 2022. Accessed 30 January 2023.
Helen and her infant son Homer travelled to Liverpool on the SS Empress of Canada, arriving in September 1950. She remarried shortly thereafter. The family settled in Birmingham; like his father, Homer's step-father was a keen photographer. Homer too was a keen photographer as a teenager, creating a darkroom at Sidcot, his boarding school, that he would take home during vacations.
In 1968 Sykes started a three-year course at the London College of Printing (LCP), while sharing a house in St John's Wood. In the summer vacation during his first year, he went to New York, and was impressed by the work of current photographers – Cartier-Bresson, Davidson, Friedlander, Frank, Uzzle and Winogrand – that he saw at the Museum of Modern Art.
Life and career While wondering about a new photographic project, Sykes serendipitously came across a story on the Britannia Coconut Dancers in an issue of In Britain magazine. This led him to research other local festivals in Britain at the archives of Cecil Sharp House.David Alan Mellor, No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection (London: Hayward Publishing, 2007; ), 15, n.13. Sykes' photography of these festivals was inspired by that of Benjamin Stone, but he approached them with a modern sensibility and a small-format camera, "[trying] to include the unintended participants and to document the unfolding drama in a contemporary urban environment"."We are here: Martin Parr, Anna Pavord and others on photographing Britain", Tate etc, issue 10, Summer 2007. Accessed 9 September 2015. After viewing a touring exhibition of Stone and Sykes' photography of "festivals, customs and pageants", Colin MacInnes wrote that:
Although these photographs do great credit to Sykes both as a photographer and as a social investigator, it should not be thought that his interests lie exclusively in the direction of barrel parades, beating the bounds, or the Queensferry burryman (who saunters around the boozers looking like a floral dalek on appropriate occasions). For . . . [Sykes'] chief interest is in a more varied photography. . . . At [giving us a heightened image of reality], Homer Sykes is very good indeed. . . . [When photographing a pageant], he seems to have caught the performers rather off their guard – not so much when doing this traditional thing, as having done it, or being about to do it.Colin MacInnes, "Arts in Society: Photo Pageants", New Society, 16 August 1973, pp. 404–405.
The photographs also appeared in Once a Year: Some Traditional British Customs, a book (published by Gordon Fraser, uniform with Patrick Ward's Wish You Were Here) in which Sykes presents one or more photographs of and a detailed explanatory text for each of 81 customs—for example, three photographs (on pp. 105–108) of the annual auction on the first Monday following St Peter's Day (29 June) at the Grapes Inn of the mowing and grazing rights to Yarnton Meadow (or Yarnton West Mead), Yarnton (Oxfordshire). Once a Year has been described as "a beautifully photographed, tender and often humorous document";Simon Roberts, "Once a Year: Homer Sykes", We English, 22 September 2008. Accessed 9 September 2015. and, 32 years after its publication, as remaining "[p]robably the best study of English folklore and ritual".
But Sykes's interests went far beyond annual customs. Annie-Laure Wanaverbecq of Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau writes that "Observing his countrymen with humour and curiosity, over several years [Sykes] produced a fabulous visual archive of a nation in crisis and beset by doubt."Annie-Laure Wanaverbecq, "Homer Sykes: England 1970–1980", Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau, 2014. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 14 July 2014. Accessed 9 September 2015. (Observant ses concitoyens avec humour et curiosité, il produit pendant plusieurs années une fabuleuse archive visuelle de la vie ordinaire dans un pays en crise et en proie au doute.) This included the glam rock, punk, new wave and other music/fashion scenes of Britain.Michaël Houlette, "« England 1970–1980 » par Homer Sykes à la Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau ", Actuphoto, 11 April 2014. Accessed 9 September 2015.
Michaël Houlette of Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau writes: The combination of several people in the same frame characterizes most of the photographs by Homer Sykes selected for [an exhibition of his work of the 1970s]. Often the structure of his images rests on two or three main figures who stand out and reveal themselves by an expression or attitude. There is no overly obvious direction or composition, just a keen observation and a systematic method of shooting: a short focal length, some preliminary observation and a certain English manner, frank and courteous, to come in contact with people that he sometimes photographs at very close range (surprisingly, they also seem to ignore the photographer who is at work). Present at the event, invisible in the image, Homer Sykes made discretion a real trademark. And if it's evidence of knowing how to see, it's the relinquishment of the frame to those he photographs: "My pictures are about people, what they wear, how they look, how they interact with each other, against a background that sets the scene. They are not about me".Michaël Houlette, "« England 1970–1980 » par Homer Sykes à la Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau ", Actuphoto, 11 April 2014. Accessed 9 September 2015. (La réunion de plusieurs personnages dans un même cadre caractérise la plupart des photographies d'Homer Sykes sélectionnées pour ce projet. Bien souvent la structure de ses images repose sur deux ou trois figures principales qui se distinguent et se dévoilent par une expression ou une attitude. Il n'y a pas de mise ou scène ni de composition trop évidente, juste une observation fine et une méthode systématique de prise de vue: une focale courte, quelques repérages préalables et une certaine manière anglaise, franche et courtoise, d'entrer en contact avec les personnes qu'il photographie parfois à très faible distance (étonnamment, celles-ci semble d'ailleurs ignorer le photographe qui est à l'œuvre). Présent à l'évènement, invisible dans l'image, Homer Sykes fait de la discrétion une véritable marque de fabrique. Et s'il fait preuve d'un "savoir voir", c'est pour laisser le champ libre à ces sujets. . . .)
After absorbing advice from David Hurn, then a part-time lecturer at LCP who was living nearby, as well as other photographers that he met through Hurn, Sykes moved on to photographing news stories for the Weekend Telegraph, Observer, Sunday Times, Newsweek, Now, Time, and New Society. He worked with various agencies including Viva,"Viva, une agence de photographes: 1972-1982 ", Jeu de Paume, 2007. Accessed 9 September 2015. and from 1989 to 2005 was with Network Photographers.
Sykes photographed the British landscape, as well as pubs, prehistoric remains and other scenes in Britain, for various books published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. He also found time for his own projects: Hunting with Hounds, "a closely observed documentation of another set of rituals that define a dimension of the English way of life", and On the Road Again, photographs of four North American road trips taken over three decades.Homer Sykes biography, How We Are: Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present, ed. Val Williams and Susan Bright (London: Tate Publishing, 2007; ), p.221.
When the Grimstone Foundation invited Sykes to photograph Shanghai, the city of his conception, he jumped at the opportunity. A high point for him was his discovery that the building on Jiang Xi Lu where his parents lived still existed, as the Fu Zhou building.Homer Sykes, "Photographer's statement", Shanghai Odyssey (Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2002), n.p. Sykes's collection was exhibited and published as Shanghai Odyssey.
Sykes has taught in the master's course in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.
In 2014, Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau (Gentilly, Paris) held a major exhibition of Sykes' work from the 1970s.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions "Traditional British Calendar Customs", Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol), 1977; Side Gallery (Newcastle), 31 August – 25 September 1977.Description of poster, Amber Online. Accessed 9 September 2015. "Shanghai Odyssey", Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), 24 May – 20 June 2003.Joanna Pitman, "Ghost of the Past: Homer Sykes's portrait of Shanghai old and new captivates", Times (London), 21 May 2003; archived by the Wayback Machine on 15 June 2011. Accessed 9 September 2015. Festival of Photography and Contemporary Art (Biella), 2005. "On the Road Again", Hereford Town Hall (Hereford Photography Festival), 2002.Exhibition notice , Hereford Photography Festival. Accessed 22 January 2010. "Green Man and Friends, photographs from the 1970s", WPS (Hastings), 2009."Photography & the Archive Research Centre", Facebook. Accessed 2 July 2010. "England 1970–1980", Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau (Gentilly, Paris), 27 June – 12 October 2014."Homer Sykes: England 1970–1980 ", British Council France. Accessed 9 September 2015.Claire Rodineau, "L'Angleterre punk d'Homer Sykes s'expose à Paris", Le Figaro, 7 July 2014. Accessed 9 September 2015. "My Britain 1970–1980", Les Douches la Galerie, Paris. 5 September – 31 October 2015.Press kit for "My Britain 1970–1980", Les Douches la Galerie. Accessed 9 September 2015."Homer Sykes: My Britain 1970–1980", Time Out Paris. Accessed 9 September 2015.Sarah Moroz, "Homer Sykes: Photographers are lemmings", The Guardian, 9 September 2015. Accessed 9 September 2015. "Once a Year – Homer Sykes", Lucy Bell Gallery, St Leonards-on-Sea, May–June 2021
Other exhibitions "Personal Views 1850–1970", British Council touring exhibition, 1970. "Traditional Country Customs" (with work by Benjamin Stone), ICA (London), 1971. "Young British Photographers", Museum of Modern Art (Oxford), 1971. Exhibition of photographs by Stone and Sykes of festivals, customs and pageants, Southampton and Birmingham, 1973. "Reportage Fotografen", Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna), 1978. "Il Regno Unito si diverte". British Council, Milan, 1981. With Chris Steele-Perkins and Patrick Ward., British Council. This does not specify the place(s) of exhibition, but (as of 9 September 2015) the OPAC of the libraries of the Province of Prato lists a publication titled Il Regno Unito si diverte that specifies Milan. "The Other Britain", National Theatre (London), and touring in Britain, 1982."The Other Britain Revisited: Photographs from New Society", Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010. Accessed 9 September 2015. "A British Eye on the World", Museum of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro), 1986.