Photography by Mike Baker » Where is my mind?

Even his super powers couldn’t get him a room during the Edinburgh Festival.

This bus stop sits, abandoned, inside a disused psychiatric hospital. Just after a rain shower, the site was incredibly quiet and still, and the sky brought an added sense of foreboding and drama.

I had wanted to take an HDR photo, but didn’t have my tripod, so the resulting exposures were impossible to align properly. I exposed the RAW at -2, -1, 0, 1 and 2 EV, then used Photomatix Pro to combine them and tone map to bring out the sky.

While we were in Canada last year, we saw some beautiful rings made by the Kwagiulth artist Carey Newman. Although the sizes weren’t available in the designs we wanted, he made us some, and we love them so much that I photographed them to go on our wedding invitations. Mine is the larger, Eagle design, and my wife-to-be chose the Raven. Both birds have significance in native Canadian culture:-

• Raven is the most important of all the creatures to the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast. He is the transformer and the trickster, and the cultural hero. Raven also symbolises creation, prestige and knowledge. He can be identified by a long, straight beak, often holding a round image of the sun, which symbolises the light he gave to the world.
• Eagle can be a symbol of power. Eagle belongs to the supernatural world and is next in line to Thunderbird. The down from the Eagle is a symbol of peace, and would be sprinkled before guests in welcome dances. Eagle feathers are used in ritual, and as decoration for masks and other carvings. Eagle’s beak is shorter than Raven’s and has a downward curve. The tongue is often evident.

You can see more of Carey Newman’s work here.

Sculpture on the Barcelonetta beach, Barcelona.

Scanned from a negative. From the days before I could afford a digital camera!

Detail of an iron leaf on an old gate.

Slight sepia toning in Photoshop.

most of my time is taken up with this little fella - our wonderful son Cameron.

The row of bookshops that border the park in Madrid are closed for Sunday.

City Hall, London. My first venture into the world of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.

I took three exposures (1 stop difference), hand-held, leaning against a wall, so I was pretty happy with the alignment of the shots. I’ve since had advice that to get the best HDR shots, a range of 5 stops is recommended, so I will try that (with a tripod) soon.

I’ve used Photomatix Pro to combine the exposures and tone map them (I haven’t figured out how to tone-map in Photoshop). I was so impressed by the ease with which I could do the tone-mapping in the Photomatix Pro demo, that I bought a copy!

I’ll write a bit about HDR photography and Photomatix Pro soon.

The City Hall area is one of my favourite London places. The giant banisters/railings are an eye-catching feature.