About Me
Laurence Baker
Hi, I’m Laurence Baker, an Isle of Wight landscape photographer.
I live in a beautiful place, and I have to remind myself not to wallow in self-pity sometimes. So the quote below is something I always remember when life is serving me lemons.
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself”.
D H Lawrence
I live on the Isle of Wight, England, a very photogenic island off the south coast of England.
The Isle of Wight does not have dramatic scenery, it’s more like someones back-garden compared to the mountainous areas of the UK. Consequently, you have to work harder to turn out decent landscape photographs.
Check out my Landscape photographs and images of the Isle of Wight.
Solitude
I’m not a people person, so I love being by myself in the countryside. Landscape Photography and I were made for each other.
Despite enjoying my own company, I do believe in sharing my knowledge. If you ever want to know about photography locations on the Isle of Wight please contact me. Or, if you come over to the ‘Island’ I would love to show you my favourite locations.
Who do I Respect
Photoshop
Ok, some of the stuff these guys teach is well, a bit pointless. But it teaches you the tools in a fun way.
- Glyn Dewis
- Aaron Nace (Phlearn)
- Marty Geller (Blue Lightning TV)
- Martin Evening for his books
Photography
Don McCullin – A perfectionist who has seen the worse of humanity. If you can get to the Tate Modern to see his 2019 exhibition – do so.
But, If anyone tells me photography is art – I laugh.
Adobe
I’m an Adobe Certified Expert in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. I’ve been using Photoshop since version four of Photoshop back in the 1990s. I also use Adobe Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Audition, and Premiere Pro.
Outside of changing hair and eye colour and all the other very interesting but useless Photoshop techniques, my number one priority is to turn out sharp photographs.
In the 1990s the internet speeds were a fraction of the speeds they are now I had to learn the dark art of crushing images down to smallest possible file size for the web. A skill I practice to this day. Think third world and 2G.
Web Design (1990’s)
I came to the web design via my job in computer networking.
In fact, I joined the Internet even before the web took off. We had just Newsgroups and a handful of sites without images – just text and hyperlinks.
When images started being supported on webpages I went out and bought Photoshop Version 4.
I fell in love with Photoshop, but I couldn’t afford a film camera and a negative scanner.
So I bought one of the first digital cameras to land in the UK – Olympus C-800L. It was 1024×768 (XGA) and cost a staggering £800+. It did the job. I couldn’t call my self a photographer though and I wasn’t interested in photography.
Back to the Isle of Wight
I got bored of being in front of a screen. I left London to return to my birth-place, the Isle of Wight and I left all things technical behind.
I did a series of manual jobs and enjoyed them. I Rode mountain bikes, went to the gym, and circuit training. I hardly touched a computer for many years.
Then I got bitten again by computers again in my mid 50’s. I had a long journey re-learning lost skills. I’m still on that journey, to be honest.
Isle of Wight Landscape Photographer
I took up landscape photography by accident. I’m a bird watcher who bought a camera to attach to my telescope (digiscoping).
I started to remove my camera – a Leica X1 – from my telescope whilst I was waiting around for the birds to appear. I started to realise I could take photos of the landscape.
I soon realised that landscape photography is technically easy, but developing an eye is something you’ve got to work on.
Like most of us, my first photos were not bad and far from perfect.
I had a two-year learning curve before I could call myself a landscape photographer.
Do not assume that Landscape Photography is difficult, it’s not. If you love the outdoors your half-way to becoming a landscape photographer.
If you like what you see, try and replicate the scene with your camera.
There’s one thing I wish someone told me at the very beginning of my landscape photography journey.
You don’t need to have your aperture at f/16, and your ISO at 100 to get a decent shot.
Why not try f/8 and Auto ISO for starters.
YouTube
I’ve done a few YouTube Videos when I’ve had time. I’m more interested in post-processing than photography. So that’s reflected in my videos.
WordPress
I now design websites as a hobby for friends. I use WordPress now.
I can hand-code sites but, without the help of a team, it can take aeons to create a site.
Get in touch if you want a website designed. Don’t forget I can also take the photos for your website.