They moved to Manchester when she was two,[5] and her sister later boarded at Penrhos Girls' School in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, from where they were evacuated during the Second World War to Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire.
Whilst there, for the next fifteen years, she made candid, unposed, spontaneous photographs of people living in the area in Salford and Manchester during a time of massive slum clearance.
In July and August 1987 she completed a commission to photograph at Manchester Airport for the Documentary Photography Archive (DPA).
[10] Shirley Baker: Life Through a Lens, a feature-length documentary, had its premiere on 18 May 2023, at the Centre for British Photography in London.
The film, written by John West and directed and edited by Jason Figgis, is narrated by the actor Samantha Beckinsale.