Sykes's father, 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 a Canadian born and raised in Hong Kong. The pair were married in August 1947, but in June 1948, in an early stage of his wife's pregnancy, Homer was killed in an accident at Lunghua airfield. Helen returned to her family home in Vancouver, and the son was born three weeks later.
When the boy's mother remarried in 1954, the family moved to England. He was a keen photographer as a teenager, with a darkroom both at home and at boarding school. In 1968 he started a three-year course at the London College of Printing, 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.
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 the Cecil Sharp House. 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". The results were shown in exhibitions, where they were praised by Colin MacInnes, and also in the book Once a Year: Some Traditional British Customs. In this book (published by Gordon Fraser, uniform with Patrick Ward's Wish You Were Here), 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"; and, 32 years after its publication, as remaining "[p]robably the best study of English folklore and ritual".
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, and from 1989 to 2005 was with Network Photographers.
Sykes also photographed the British landscape for various books published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, but 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.
When the Grimstone Foundation invited Sykes to photograph Shanghai, the city of his conception, he jumped at the opportunity. A high point for the photographer was his discovery that the building on Jiang Xi Lu where his parents lived still existed, as the Fu Zhou building. 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.
"Traditional British Calendar Customs", Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol), 1977; Side Gallery (Newcastle), 1977.
"Shanghai Odyssey", Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), 2003. Festival of Photography and Contemporary Art (Biella), 2005.
"On the Road Again", Hereford town hall (Hereford Photography Festival), 2002.
"Green Man and Friends, photographs from the 1970s", WPS (Hastings), 2009.
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.
"Reportage Fotografen", Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna), 1978.
"Il Regno Unito si diverte". British Council, Milan, 1981. (With Chris Steele-Perkins and Patrick Ward.)
"The Other Britain", National Theatre (London), and touring in Britain, 1982.
"A British Eye on the World", Museum of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro), 1986.
"Viva, une agence photographique", Jeu de Paume (Paris), 2007.
"How We Are: Photographing Britain." Tate Britain (London), 2007.
"No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1968—1987", Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Tullie House (Carlisle); Ujazdów Castle (Warsaw).
"Unpopular culture." The De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill), 2008.
"The Other Britain Revisited: Photographs from New Society", Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010.
"Goodbye London: Radical art and politics in the seventies", Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (Berlin), June–August 2010. With Stuart Brisley, Victor Burgin, David Hall, Margaret Harrison, Derek Jarman, Peter Kennard, Jo Spence, and John Savage." Goodbye London: Radical Art and Politics in the Seventies", NGBK. " Goodbye London: Radical art and politics in the seventies", art-report.com. Both accessed 2010-07-02.
British Image 1: Photographs by Homer Sykes, Claire Schwob, John Myers, Daniel Meadows, Bryn Campbell, Roslyn Banish, Ian Dobbie, and Paul Carter. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1975. Sykes' "Calendar Customs" appears on p. 4–15.
The Facts about a Pop Group: Featuring Wings. London: Whizzard, Deutsch, 1976. ISBN 0233967710. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1976. ISBN 0207134103. New York: Harmony, 1977. ISBN 0517529831. Text by Dave Gelly. About the group Wings.
Wie eine Pop-Gruppe arbeitet. Musik erklärt für junge Leser. Hamburg: Tessloff, 1978. ISBN 3788608013.
Once a Year: Some Traditional British Customs. London: Gordon Fraser, 1977. ISBN 0900406682.
The English Season. London: Pavilion, 1986. ISBN 1851450351. Topsfield, Mass.: Salem House, 1987. ISBN 0881622362. Text by Godfrey Smith. On the social "season".
The Village Pub. Country Series 26. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992. ISBN 0297831259. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996. ISBN 0297835610. London: Phoenix Illustrated, 1998. ISBN 0753804344. Text by Roger Protz.
English Village Pubs. New York: Abbeville, 1992. ISBN 1558594094.
Mysterious Britain: Fact and Folklore. Country Series 30. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993. ISBN 0297831968. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995. ISBN 0297834533. London: Phoenix Illustrated, 1998. ISBN 0753804328. London: Cassell, 2001. ISBN 184188149X.
The Great Stones of England. Weidenfeld Country Miniatures. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994. ISBN 0297833235. On megaliths.
The Storm Is Passing Over: A Look at Black Churches in Britain. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995. ISBN 0500278261. Text by Roy Kerridge.
Celtic Britain. Country Series 40. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997. ISBN 0297822101. London: Phoenix Illustrated, 1998. ISBN 0753801280. London: Cassell, 2001. ISBN 1841881503.
On the Road Again. London: Mansion, 2002. 0-9542233-0-6.
Shanghai Odyssey. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 2002. ISBN 1899235140.
Hunting with Hounds. London: Mansion, 2004. ISBN 0-9542233-1-4 (hardback), 0-9542233-2-2 (paperback).
