“This is one of the main inspiration images. The first thing that’s fascinating is that these buildings are so grey. I grew up in tenements and in truth, they’re luminous and blonde once they’re sandblasted. But that’s an accumulation of dirt and smog and rain. With that red car against the bleak landscape, I thought of the character of Agnes Bain. I wanted to capture a similar feeling: this woman who was just glorious and vibrant and colourful against this drab city background. So, I wanted to make her like that car – she’s conspicuous against any backdrop she’s in. She’s almost too conspicuous, and she doesn’t conform in that way. Agnes is Sophia Loren against a city that’s fucked behind her.”

“There’s an oppression here – a walling in from the buildings, which gives a claustrophobic feeling. But what I love here is how innocent the girl is, and how playful her dress is. Everything about her is crossed; her legs, her arm behind her, and her eyes are gazing to God. But this is a city that didn’t make space for children. She’s playing in these black back-greens that aren’t even green, which was the safe space behind the tenements. Children had to make their fun in this industrial backdrop, and this girl is this very pure thing in this masculine world.”

“That’s not Sighthill, where I also lived, but it’s how Sighthill looked. At some point those towers were seen as a real sign of hope. My family aspired to live in them – we were desperate to get out of the tenements into those high-rises. But when you look now, it looks like a war zone: look at the concrete wall with the barbed wire running along the top. There was no consideration of space for humans or anything to make this a more beautiful environment. And this mother and her child are trying to survive in this brutal concrete place where it almost looks like humans can’t live. I find this photo really hard, because it looks like East Berlin after the War. But it’s 1980s Glasgow.”

“I don’t think of the shipbuilding industry on the Clyde dying, I think about these boys going to go work there. You’re playing under these cranes on your Chopper, then ultimately the expectation is that you’ll go get a job like your dad at the end of your road. This image also makes me think of Barry Hines’ book A Kestrel For A Knave, which became the film Kes. Because all throughout that, the older brother is threatening 13-year-old Billy: ‘Stop messing about because you’ll be down the mines at the end of the summer.’ I feel that oppression in this picture. There’s an entire life there.”

“This is the burden that was put on kids to act more grown-up than they were. These two are entirely by themselves, against this industrial landscape, under this really foreboding sky that you often get in the north. You just get a sense of them in isolation and doing the best they can. And she’s like a wee mother already, and she’s just getting on with it. Children don’t always get childhoods.”

“I look at that and I think about pride. It’s the working-class thing of how much effort you put into looking your best. I write a lot about that, it’s Agnes’s superpower. Here’s this elderly couple turning out for this day. In the background you have a brutalist high-rise, a smokestack and decaying warehouses. The only part of nature is what they’ve brought in themselves: the red rose in his lapel, and her yellow bouquet. That’s just remarkable. They might not have very much but they’re so proud, standing in front of that Rolls-Royce and looking their best. They’ve made that huge effort.”

“This one is really meta for me. The sign ‘Reorganisation Sale’ obviously refers to whatever the business was, but we know Glasgow went through a massive reorganisation. You could look at this as an image of deprivation, but actually it’s one of rebirth. These buildings are boarded up because the buildings are about to be torn down because people are about to be rehoused. We know that failed, so there’s maybe misplaced hope in this picture. But it’s hope, nonetheless.”

“This is about the world of men, and how women don’t have a place in it. These wee men are like cuckoos who’ve come out of the pub to have a look at the sky. There’s also something very cheerful about these guys. It’s not a sad photo – you can imagine the banter’s pretty good. And it makes me think of my mother. When she was younger, women – decent women, in any case – couldn’t go into pubs on their own. So, I think of the sex divide in these communities. As a young girl of seven, eight, nine, my mum could go into the pub, but only to dig her dad out of there.”

“This makes me think of unemployment, these men loitering on the corner – and it reverts them to schoolboys with their hands behind their backs. And I think about Shuggie and the purpose of men. After their working life they’re hanging on street corners, shouting at people. That was the 1980s in Glasgow for me: a lot of men with no work. But the really interesting thing is the woman in the red coat. She’s the only lick of colour, and the only person in the photo who looks like she has a purpose. She has her bag in her hand, she’s striding down the street, she’s going places.”

“I think about this kid all the time. First of all, it’s the audacity of that pink bubble against that landscape – there’s something incredibly expressive about it. I’ve no idea about the wee boy’s orientation, but I imagine something quite feminine. Everything else is masculine and run-down: the painted goalposts, the other lads playing football, but he’s not among them – why? And he’s not looking up the street at what everyone else is doing. He’s looking off to the side. You hope he’s looking towards some other horizon. That pink bubble is the same as the red Cortina was for Agnes. That was Shuggie for me, standing out against how men were supposed to be.”