Baker Artist Portfolios

I make photographs because it is my compulsion. I can't leave my house without my camera and a roll of film. There is something special about the tactile nature of film in a digital world. Images can be altered when they are only digital. They can be deleted with no trace. A negative is a memorialization of a moment. You can always prove what you captured on film. 

I began photographing when I was in high school because I wanted to watch the change of my neighborhood happen. I also photographed parties I went to and family events. My camera was always with me. Originally from Baltimore, I attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where I really developed my craft. I learned that just about all of the best Life Magazine photographers had a Leica camera, I needed to have one. As the world went digital, I went and bought a camera made 10 years before I was born. I was told to find a focal length to make that my voice. I had been using a zoom lens before, but found that 35mm was my perspective where I thought captured what I was seeing best. That has been my settup for 20 years. Leica M4-P with a 35 mm lens shooting 35mm color film.

About 15 years ago, I was included in the Duke University for Documentary Studies and Powerhouse Books publication 25 Under 25 Up and Coming American Photographers Vol.2. For the past 5 years I have been editing and scanning thousands of rolls of film that span over 20 years. I have yet to scan 2017-2020. I view all of my work as recent as I haven't really seen it since I snapped the picture.

All work is 35mm Color Negative Film. To quote my mentor, Philip Perkis who recently passed away, "It isn't art play, its art work".