browseSmith's Dock, North Shields
Peter Fryer 2 (Photographer)
Photographer’s statement, 2003:
I was living next to Smith’s Dock at the time I took these photographs. There wasn’t a lot of work coming into the yard and there was a planned closure of parts of the docks – the three eastern dry docks. The work was commissioned by Side. Amber was working in North Shields at the time and so what was happening at Smith’s was a concern. Ship building and ship repair had been an important area for Amber and Side and so it was naturally of interest to them.
It wasn’t a large or long term piece of work. It was seen as archival work, documenting something that was important to record; something that was under threat. The work consisted mainly of portraits of the workers still employed in the various ‘shops’ and general shots of the docks themselves. There are also a couple of images of people queuing up for short term work.