As a component of larger Street Photography work, the use of (smart)phones in the wider world proves a love of constant, portable contact with our personal and professional networks - symbolising our hunger of the always, the everywhere and the immediate. Eating into every moment of our conscience hours, the telephone, as seen on the street, is an extension of our limb and brain. These pictures (from 1994 to present) record a generation whose minds are wholly synchronised with the signal from a transmitting mast, while on the go.

In this gallery of thematic coincidences and repetitions one follows carefully edited sequences of street incidents that use colour, circumstance and form as threads. They originate from the early 90s to the present and include the workman; dogs; faces; mannequins; backdrops; seasides; spillages. Returning from aviation projects (Red Arrows, 2005) I have been drawn again into public places, spurred on after reports of farcical incidents when tourists were suspected of terrorist surveillance. It's hugely exciting (and overwhelming) to venture from home and take street pictures. But while it is an exercise of unconstrained, spontaneous possibilities there can be no better examples of wasted days when walking pavements yields nothing but sore feet. People and landscapes are fickle and it's also easy to become paranoid at what one might miss simply by looking say, a few degrees to the left, mere feet from where the most magical moment has occurred. While I prefer to seek the overly complex and complicated I tend to find the minimal and simple; the poignant and quietly incongruous. This isn't so much an annoyance as a surprise to me that I come home with twos and threes of people and objects rather than multiples. Outs become stock, laden with suggestive conceptual keywords: Worry; nerves; suspicion; tension; romance and oddity. I would urge the viewer to see this gallery as a slideshow in full-screen mode and to watch until the end, where many of my favourite pictures have been deliberately placed. And if you care to help me edit this work, I will willingly send you an invite to rate the images within a lightbox. A small edit of the Top 30 is here: http://bit.ly/13sLIMX

A tight selection of my most recent personal work in descending date taken order.

The climate change activists with Extinction Rebellion occupied various road junctions at Marble Arch and Oxford Circus plus Waterloo Bridge on Monday 15th April 2019 and throughout the Easter holidays. These pictures describe the first 4 days at these locations as public sympathy (commuters, motorists and holidaymakers) ebbed. The Met police were criticised for not removing the road blocks but over 500 ordinary folk were arrested for civil disobedience offences.

A-B, there and back, most days. As if a daily commuter, I take the bus to work. But by the time I've taken my place in a favourite rear window seat, I'm already 'at my desk' seeing everyday Londoners below on London's pavements. Every £1.50 chauffeured drive into the West End or the City is a road trip along the Walworth Road via Elephant & Castle. And when I reach my destination, it is the walk and not the ride which takes me elsewhere. Later this year I qualify for a Freedom Pass which entitles me to free bus and train travel around the capital and so the world (London and the south-east) will be my Oyster. 50 images.

A ten-day drive around the EU's other alpine member state: For the full 500 edit: https://richardbaker.photoshelter.com/gallery/Slovenia-Full-edit/G0000mzoK_hbyhnA

A ten-day drive around the EU's other alpine member state: For the 'Best 60' edit: https://richardbaker.photoshelter.com/gallery/Slovenia-Best-60/G0000E9ztc3gQsWE

The best 50 from an edit of 500 and from a 10-day self-financed trip to Luxor and the Western Desert. Staying with a local family on the West Bank, I photographed aspects of contemporary Egyptian life as well as some of the ancient temples. I was then given permission from the authorities to make an accompanied (police escorted) visit to the Dakhla Oasis and surrounding dunes, driven by a Bedouin guide. This material is on sale as Rights Managed. The full 500-picture edit: http://bit.ly/1R7CYTp

The full 500 picture edit from a 10-day trip to Luxor and The Western Desert. The Best 50: http://bit.ly/1pUJzGx

These eight landscapes are from the port and town of Ramsgate, Kent - a county that, in the 2016 EU referendum, voted 59% to Leave. The government have consequently awarded a £14m contract to Seaborne Freight to operate ferries to Ostend from here in the event of a No Deal Brexit. The wasteland was last used as passenger terminal five years ago and is now a wasteland. Both Thanet council (the Port owner) and the mayor of Ostend in Belgium say the import and export ferry operation will never happen in time for Brexit at the end of March and anyway, there is little evidence that Seaborne actually have any ferries.

Spiritual revellers celebrate the summer Solstice (mid-summer and longest day) at the ancient stones of Stonehenge, on 21st June 2017, in Wiltshire, England. Fifteen thousand attended the 2017 Solstice according to English Heritage. Pagans say the ancient monument is a sacred place that links the Earth, Moon, Sun and the seasons. Built in three phases between 3,000 B.C. and 1,600 B.C. its purpose remains under study. However, it’s known that if you stand in just the right place inside the monument on summer solstice, through the entrance towards a rough hewn stone outside the circle you will see the sun rise above the Heel Stone. I last came to the solstice here in. the nineties when there were no security in high-vis among the sarcen stones, no bewildered coach tourists, no intense floodlighting, no chewing gum left on stones and definitely no anti-terrorist police. But now I remember what it's like to be up all day, all night - and now, all day again. I expect the stones will help me heal. (35 images).

Sequences of three.

A series of landscapes from around the wall that surrounds Brockwell Park in Herne Hill, south London during the controversial Field Day festival over the weekend of 1st - 3rd June 2018. Around the UK, green spaces like parks are being appropriated by private events companies, allowed to section off parks like Brockwell with tall anti-climb barriers that keeps out the local community. "They paved paradise, put up a parking lot." Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi.

Carnegie Library in Herne Hill, south London finally closed its doors for the last time at 6pm on March 31st 2016 after a prolonged campaign by the local community to stop Lambeth council from converting the building into a gym and privately-owned enterprises - rather than maintain the much-loved reading and learning resource minus the qualified and knowledgeable librarians to run it. As the gates were locked, so the 10--day occupation started with 70 locals choosing to stay among the 20,000 books and computers otherwise used by generations of children, the elderly and adult literacy groups - all now mourning the loss of this Edwardian building, in service since 1906. £12,600 was originally donated by the American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to help build the library, a fine example of Edwardian civic architecture, built with red Flettan bricks and terracotta, listed as Grade II in 1981. This gallery is an edited collection from 360 , spanning the last day it was open for business on the 31st March to the last day of occupation on the 9th April 2016. "Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities." Prof. R David Lankes, University of Syracuse.

Carnegie Library in Herne Hill, south London finally closed its doors for the last time at 6pm on March 31st 2016 after a prolonged campaign by the local community to stop Lambeth council from converting the building into a gym and privately-owned enterprises - rather than maintain the much-loved reading and learning resource minus the qualified and knowledgeable librarians to run it. As the gates were locked, so the 10-day occupation started with 70 locals choosing to stay among the 20,000 books and computers otherwise used by generations of children, the elderly and adult literacy groups - all now mourning the loss of this Edwardian building, in service since 1906. £12,600 was originally donated by the American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to help build the library, a fine example of Edwardian civic architecture, built with red Flettan bricks and terracotta, listed as Grade II in 1981. "Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities." Prof. R David Lankes, University of Syracuse. USAGE RATES APPLY

In date taken order. "Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities." Prof. R David Lankes, University of Syracuse.

Local community volunteers help harvest the heritage wheat crop from the public Ruskin Park in the south London borough of Lambeth, UK. The wheat has been growing in the park's long grass area, a corner where a variety of wheat such as Blue Cone Rivet, Rouge d'Ecosse and Old Kent Red and others including from Ethiopia, have thrived. London heritage wheat specialist and baker Andy Forbes, will have his produce ground in the once-derelict windmill in Brixton, which, after Lottery funding, now serves the community as a working mill.

The Passion of Jesus is performed in London's Trafalgar Square by members of Wintershall Charitable Trust. Played annually on Good Friday it celebrates the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The cast re-enacts the Christian Biblical story to an audience of thousands and the main character is played by professional actor James Burke-Dunsmore.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor walk with a following entourage of supporters and media through central London - from the Royal Academy in Piccadilly to the former Olympic Park Stratford, eight-miles to show solidarity with refugees around the world. “It is an act of solidarity and minimal action – we like that spirit,” said Kapoor. Ai, who has a show at the Royal Academy opening to the public on Saturday, said “We are all refugees somehow, somewhere and at some moment.”

An archive of all of my Instagram files - updated periodically.

The white middle-classes gathered in Parliament Square to protest against plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport - blighting, they say, thousands of homes in London's aviation hub's flight paths - especially to the west of the capital. Central to the demonstration were both London mayoral candidates: the Conservative Zac Goldsmith and Labour's Sadique Khan. The £17bn expansion at Heathrow would mean 250,000 more flights a year.

London, 5th March 2015: The sculpture known as Gift Horse, by German artist Hans Haacke, is unveiled in London's Trafalgar Square on the public space called the Fourth Plinth. London mayor Boris Johnson financed the 10th artwork to appear here. The skeletal, riderless horse (derived from The Anatomy of a Horse - George Stubbs, 1766) with a London Stock Exchange tickertape is a comment on power, money and history.

Magazine spreads and the covers of English and foreign edition books featuring the photography of Richard Baker. Alongside are the original (often full-frame) photographs.

Pictures commissioned by writer Alain de Botton for his latest book "Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion." Published and unpublished photography appear in date taken order from locations at Rivendell Buddhist Retreat Centre in Sussex; London Metropolitan University; a Jewish Mikveh in north London and a Catholic church in west London. Read a blog post about my working on the Religion book: http://bit.ly/zmJcp5

BUST - The Art of Recession. Around a recession-bled Britain, high-street businesses have been going bust in their thousands. From a continuing piece of work about windows and urban messages, I have been looking afresh at the façades of our local shops that are now falling victim to this credit crunched economy. Napoleon called the English 'a nation of shopkeepers' but we are seeing the hopes and dreams of our shop owners who have historically shouldered all that the Luftwaffe and IRA have thrown at them, now yielding to these latest financial bombardments. After the shelves groan their last under the weight of over-ordered stock, so the liquidators move in and staff are given notice to leave. Searching for these victims might seem ghoulish or intrusive but I have not identified any particular business with the thought that each anonymous glass landscape speaks for the multitude around the country, masking their financial and personal tragedies within: It is a documentary about once-proud (now defeated) retailers whose ambitions of ownership and self-reliance are over. The writings on these windows may be left by the last one to turn out the lights, the ghostly traces of an employee's last day at work. Some messages suggest a desperation, others have an acute disappointment at the loss of their jobs. There is sadness and irony but humour too. Shopping populations move on disloyally to inward-facing malls where the huge chains and mega brands lurk. But although foreclosures and lost dreams seem so final - hope is the embodiment for our businessmen and women. The economy will in fact recover quickly and new businesses will rise again. Copyright Richard Baker 2014.

Images resulting in a day spent at Rivendell Buddhist Retreat Centre, East Sussex, England. Commissioned by writer Alain de Botton for his latest book "Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion." Read a blog post about my working on the Religion project: http://bit.ly/zmJcp5

Images from St. Lawrence's Roman Catholic Church, Feltham, London. Commissioned by writer Alain de Botton for his latest book "Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion." Read a blog post about my working on the Religion book: http://bit.ly/zmJcp5

Images from London Metropolitan University's Holloway Road campus, London. Commissioned by writer Alain de Botton for his latest book "Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion." Read a blog post about my working on the Religion book: http://bit.ly/zmJcp5

From old fashioned courting and public displays of affection to the grope, the snog and ultimately, the white wedding. A 40-picture gallery of couples, love and romance seen around the world.

A loose theme of army, Navy and Air Force images sourced from personal projects and assignments. On the nature of militarism: From Roman foot soldiers, Parachute regiment training and Gurkha recruitment to life below the surface on a Royal Navy submarine and at sea level on a US Navy carrier. We pause to see war veterans and memorials to an anti-war protest and even paramilitary murals in Belfast; the ranks in a parade and the sometimes comedy of just being a serviceman - or a wannabe. And don't miss the current Duke of Wellington standing on the fields of Waterloo.

Seville's annual Easter passion procession featuring the cloaked figures Throughout Semana Santa, the annual celebrations that mark the story of Christ's crucifixion, the hooded penitents called Nazarenos, walk through the historic Andalucian city in front of the devout in a series of processions. Several hundred members of the 57 brotherhoods (or Hermandades) from many of city churches accompany giant floats (Pasos) depicting the road to Calvary.

From a book about Heathrow Airport; the Himalayas; the English seaside; populous world cities; remote spots, or merely the incongruous and the intriguing - the work hangs together from a thread of Travel-related images from commissioned and personal projects.

Two anti-government education fees London protests by students on the 24th November and 1st December 2010.

Artist Fiona Banner's breathtaking exhibition at Tate Britain entitled 'Harrier and Jaguar' exhibits two former RAF fighter jets - a BAe Sea Harrier (ZE695) and a Sepecat Jaguar (XZ118). Like oversized Airfix models, the Harrier is suspended from the ceiling with feathers tattooed on to its flying surfaces while the highly-polished Jaguar has been turned on its back as if a carcass. They may be machines of war but also have the personalities of hanging or submissive birds or beasts, nudes or totems, provoking the idea of body and machine in intimate confrontation. Fiona Banner's web site: http://www.fionabanner.com

Set in the Mendip Hills, in the south-western English county of Somerset, the Priddy Sheep fair is host to an odd mix of farmers and travellers. Two very different kinds of business can be seen: On the village green are the sheep in pens, auctioned off at the best prices using the correct paperwork and under strict disease controls - while down the lane is the field set aside for the travellers, many with West Country accents but also with nearby Welsh and Irish too. Making a deal with them is the traditional spit on the hand and a smacking of palms that sells a pony to another family. According to tradition, Priddy Sheep Fair moved from the city of Wells in 1348 because of the Black Death and local legend says that as long as the hurdle stack remains in the village, so will the Fair. The fair has been continuously held every year ever since, apart from the recent 2001 and 2007 foot-and-mouth epidemic years.

Pope Benedict XVI's papal tour of Britain 2010 was the first visit by a pontiff since the Polish John-Paul pastoral tour 1982 - but this time, the Pontiff was granted the status of a full State Visit, usually offered to Heads of State. Taxpayers therefore footed the £10m bill for non-religious elements, which largely angered a nation still reeling from the financial crisis. Pope Benedict XVI is the head of the biggest Christian denomination in the world, some one billion Roman Catholics, or one in six people. In Britain there are six million Catholics but only a quarter of whom regularly attend Sunday Mass and some churches have closed owing to spending cuts.

Richard Baker's exhibition draws from his work with writer Alain de Botton's book project The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Penguin 2009). The 16 images are captioned by selected text from de Botton's writing from the book's chapters and provided courtesy of the writer. They are paired by subject and offer a rather different context from the book although many did not make it into print. The venue is the Museum of the History of Science, Broad Street, Oxford and full directions can be seen here: http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/about/location-and-directions/ The pictures and the in-laid text are for sale and you can reserve by emailing me at richard@bakerpictures.com Both Alain and I would be delighted by your visit and I'm happy to answer questions though I'm giving a talk at the Museum on June 8th about the project and my other photography projects.

To the very second, they fly in formation over palace balconies and seaside beaches, over crowds of millions and the sheep in farmers' fields. With millions to entertain and with Concorde now grounded, Britain looks to the Royal Air Force's 'Red Arrows' Aerobatic Team as one remaining symbol to represent a truly great British institution. Richard Baker has trailed the Red Arrows - also known as the Reds - as they trained at their home airfield, in Cyprus and performing at air shows. Far from a traditional view of an aviation subject - 35mm jets and sky - his medium format cameras make an intimate and sometimes ironic reportage. He flew in formation with the team on 6 occasions shooting from the cockpit canopy while often travelling at 450mph. His pictures centre mostly on his travels and friendships with the pilots and engineers of the 100-strong team who, without exception, shared their trust and energies during his 10-month reportage. His air show observations also make for surreal side-glances at those fans who follow the patriotic red, white and blue smoke. The official RAF-sanctioned book appeared in time for the 40th anniversary of the very first Red Arrows display on May 15th 1965. This full set has until now been exclusive at CORBIS but is now at Photoshelter then Alamy. From the book 'Red Arrows' by Richard Baker Published by Dalton Watson and available from Amazon, Waterstones in the UK and publisher daltonwatson.com ISBN 1-85443-217-6 Signed copies from richard(at)bakerpictures.com

After a suspected terrorist reported to have links to al-Qaeda was overpowered by some passengers on a US-bound airliner, a Nigerian was being questioned in Detroit while police in London are searching a house where the man is thought to have lived. The suspect is believed to have studied at a university in the city. As the net widens and security at major airports with flights to the United States is stepped up, airport operator BAA said in a statement: "Passengers travelling to the United States should expect their airline to carry out additional security checks prior to boarding." These pictures from Heathrow were the subject of a project by Richard Baker and Alain de Botton in the Summer of 2009. This is a short edit from the large set and focusses on the access given to the photographer and writer during their book project: 'A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary' published by Profile Books. For the best 50 images from this project, go to http://bit.ly/6gtcGx

The Christmas holiday plans of nearly 1m British Airways passengers have been thrown into chaos after cabin crew voted for a 12-day strike over Christmas and the new year. The walkout by 12,500 cabin crew between 22 December and 2 January will ground Heathrow airport's largest carrier and will spark a scramble for tickets on rival airlines as passengers are forced to find alternative means of completing their journeys. Cabin crew announced the strike dates following a ballot of staff over changes to staff numbers and budgets. This gallery of material featuring some BA activities at London Heathrow is drawn from a Summer 2009 book project 'A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary'. FOR A WIDER EDIT GO TO: http://bit.ly/4rGhxL Call Richard Baker on 07836 287080 for more information.

The faces of fallen British service men and women are on crosses in the churchyard of Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London England. With the traditional poppies that have focussed a nation on the years of tragic conflict, the emphasis nowadays is not so much of the elderly who fought in the two world wars but increasingly of those younger soldiers killed in the Falklands, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The capital's police force are often drawn from ex-members of the military and many chose to wear their medals on this day. The country's Remembrance parades are held annually at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month - the day hostilities ceased in 1918.

Photographed for the book 'The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work' by Alain de Botton, the beleaguered Post Office is seen in at two locations (Nine Elms sorting office, London and the Logistics hub at DIRFT, in the Midlands), in 2007.

"The story of a Yellowfin tuna fish starts from the near-idyllic waters of the Maldives and the deck of a Dhoni fishing boat in the Indian ocean. Its travels continue through local processing factories, an Airbus container and Heathrow cargo sheds before reaching the dinner plate one Friday night in England." These 50 images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Hamish Hamilton in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is here: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

"Crossing English landscapes from the south coast to the capital, 542 pylons carrying 40,000 electric kilovolts cross housing estates and a wildlife sanctuary to reach power-hungry consumers of London's West End." These 30 images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is here: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

Couture English couturier Margaret Howell's fine clothing business is a behind-the-scenes (unpublished) chapter for the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton. These pictures are from her north London design factory with a team of dedicated seamstresses and tailors, and her flagship shop in Wigmore Street in central London, where her collection's catwalk shows appear and where customers can buy her simple and beautiful handmade garments that are in big demand all over the world. But especially in Japan. Howell is one of Britain's more understated of couture brands alongside more flamboyant personalities. Howell admits to being "inspired by the methods by which something is made .. enjoying the tactile quality of natural fabrics such as tweeds, linen and cotton in a relaxed, natural and lived in look." A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

"The corridors of industry and landscape along the estuaries of the changing Thames Gateway, in Essex and Kent." These 30 images are from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. Two blog stories about the project's photography are at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j and http://wp.me/p3fbj-1k

Photography of Alain de Botton writing on location for his book 'The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work' and A Heathrow Diary. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

As an introduction to Richard Baker's work, here are two PDF versions of what are normally shown as a box of A4 prints that contain image portfolios: One for art-buyers in the corporate and advertising market and the other for editorial picture editors and art directors. Both are available for free original file download on request.

20 images from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. Here are the vast logistics warehouse complexes at DIRFT in the Midlands and Sainbury's depot on the M25, showing the food-miles that products make to satisfy our insatiable appetite for speed and freshness. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

"The life of a McVitie's biscuit starts as a marketing idea at their headquarters where executives decide on toppings and packaging. Their big idea is eventually produced at a factory in industrial Belgium." These 16 images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

These 100 introduction images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. Alongside the main 650 picture gallery, this edit covers the subjects and chapters covered in the book: Logistics; Accountancy; Electricity; Rocket Science; Biscuits; Tuna Fishing; Aviation; River Business and the unpublished Couture chapter. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

Parking No Parking is an idea still in progress. Alongside a Photoshelter series about Britain's recession (called Bust - The Art of Recession, also unfinished), this is a collection of roadside clues about the places that motorists are encouraged to, or warned away from, leaving their vehicles. What I like is the unkempt, the individual and the dereliction of gates and doorways where business or home-owners feel the need to leave curt and officiously hand-painted notices in an otherwise world of uniformity where the printed sign and stencil rule. But there are also the formal parallels of parking bays that criss-cross our town centres that would otherwise been regarded as wastelands, making us keep a tidy order to our state-controlled urban lives. By exploring these two extremes of era and modernity, I hope to produce a group that engage and interest. A blog story about this project is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-1v

"The aesthetics and workplaces of accountancy, photographed at the European headquarters, seminar classes and academic days of a firm of accountants." These 30 images are from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

"The incongruous nature of launching rockets laden with satellites from the jungle of colonial French Guiana." These 30 images are from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

With aviation top of the agenda in climate change debates, this project about flying culture was shot to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Orville Wright's first flight in 1903. Most people have been in a plane at one time or another - wherever you live you have seen a plane fly over you. Aviation is an unavoidable part of our daily life, an essentially positive force that has enabled man to confound one of the fundamental laws of quantum physics - it has made the world a smaller place. One thing is for certain. Whatever the reason, be it fear, curiosity or affection, when a plane passes overhead, most of us look up. Aerospace is a magnet for misfits and dreamers - myself included, to the extent that it has been my passion since childhood. The VC10 that took me to Africa more than conveyed a 10 year-old schoolboy to a far-flung airfield to visit his brother. Any flight in any machine and I am that 10 year-old again! Today, the 120 ft that the Wright brothers' 'Flyer' aeroplane flew is the length of a 747's economy cabin. Yet only 10 years after Kitty Hawk, Fokker Triplanes buzzed the Western Front in the first dog fights where silk scarves and salutes punctuated a coup de grace. Thirty years on, the jet became of age and after a second world war, men flew faster than sound; Twenty more years and a Superpower excreted high-explosive from their bombers' bellies upon simple villagers. Aviation has sadly become part of a throw-away society and once-majestic flying machines rest in fields, drizzly aerodromes and vast parking places in the dry Mojave Desert: After a hundred years, it's own success has demoted a golden age of air travel to that of undignified scrap. (More text available on request).

These 30 images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. The book's last chapter - Aviation - was photographed at the Paris Air Show and in the aircraft graveyards of Arizona and California. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour. A blog story about the project's photography is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-4j

When asked what is his favourite building of the Century, architect Sir Norman Foster offered the 747 the Jumbo has since carried 2.2 billion people: 40% of the world's population. But the 747 has almost seen its day with the advent of more fuel-efficient and larger aviation workhorses such as the A380 and leaner, meaner machines in an era when operators need to save air-Dollars. Ten-year-old passenger 747-400s are worth a record low $36 million, about 10 percent less than similar aged planes last year, according to Ascend Worldwide Ltd., amid high fuel costs and a cargo slump that has damped interest in converting aircraft into freighters. Forty-eight of the 404 humpbacked passenger 747-400s worldwide have also been placed in storage, according to the London-based aviation consultancy, as the once "Queen of the Skies" is shunned for 777s and Airbus SAS A380s. "There's not a lot of demand for the 747," said Paul Sheridan, Ascend's Hong Kong-based head of risk analysis. "They're mostly being broken up for parts."

In mid-day heat of the arid Sonoran and Arizonan deserts sit the remains of Boeing 747 airliners and military aviation Here, the fate of the world's retired airliners and fighters are decided by age or a cooling economy and are either cannibalised for still-working parts or recycled for scrap, their aluminium fuselages worth more than their sum total. After a lifetime of safe flight, wings are clipped and cockpits sliced apart by huge guillotines, cutting through their once-magnificent engineering. Picture from the 'Plane Pictures' project, a celebration of aviation aesthetics and flying culture, 100 years after the Wright brothers first 12 seconds/120 feet powered flight at Kitty Hawk,1903. Also, at a NASA Space Junk Auction, Apollo astronaut walkway structure, electronic equipment and assorted rocket parts and gantries from the Apollo era, were sorted together after the death of NASA engineer Charles Bell, whose collection of cumbersome rockets, gantries, fuel tanks and browsers lay overgrown in what had become a snake-infested wilderness. They now sit rusting awaiting scrap dealers.

To the very second, they fly in formation over palace balconies and seaside beaches, over crowds of millions and the sheep in farmers' fields. With millions to entertain and with Concorde now grounded, Britain looks to the Royal Air Force's 'Red Arrows' Aerobatic Team as one remaining symbol to represent a truly great British institution. Richard Baker has trailed the Red Arrows - also known as the Reds - as they trained at their home airfield, in Cyprus and performing at air shows. Far from a traditional view of an aviation subject - 35mm jets and sky - his medium format cameras make an intimate and sometimes ironic reportage. He flew in formation with the team on 6 occasions shooting from the cockpit canopy while often traveling at 450mph. His pictures centre mostly on his travels and friendships with the pilots and engineers of the 100-strong team who, without exception, shared their trust and energies during his 10-month reportage. His air show observations also make for surreal side-glances at those fans who follow the patriotic red, white and blue smoke. The official RAF-sanctioned book appeared in time for the 40th anniversary of the very first Red Arrows display on May 15th 1965. This set of the best 100 has until now been exclusive at CORBIS but is now at Photoshelter and Alamy. From the book 'Red Arrows' by Richard Baker Published by Dalton Watson and available from Amazon, Waterstones in the UK and publisher daltonwatson.com ISBN 1-85443-217-6 For remainder B-edit images, go to: http://bit.ly/MN51Gi (More text available on request).

Red Arrows (B-edit and some book images in file name order). To the very second, they fly in formation over palace balconies and seaside beaches, over crowds of millions and the sheep in farmers' fields. With millions to entertain and with Concorde now grounded, Britain looks to the Royal Air Force's 'Red Arrows' Aerobatic Team as one remaining symbol to represent a truly great British institution. Richard Baker has trailed the Red Arrows - also known as the Reds - as they trained at their home airfield, in Cyprus and performing at air shows. Far from a traditional view of an aviation subject - 35mm jets and sky - his medium format cameras make an intimate and sometimes ironic reportage. He flew in formation with the team on 6 occasions shooting from the cockpit canopy while often traveling at 450mph. His pictures centre mostly on his travels and friendships with the pilots and engineers of the 100-strong team who, without exception, shared their trust and energies during his 10-month reportage. His air show observations also make for surreal side-glances at those fans who follow the patriotic red, white and blue smoke. The official RAF-sanctioned book appeared in time for the 40th anniversary of the very first Red Arrows display on May 15th 1965. This set of the best 100 has until now been exclusive at CORBIS but is now at Photoshelter then Alamy. From the book 'Red Arrows' by Richard Baker Published by Dalton Watson and available from Amazon, Waterstones in the UK and publisher daltonwatson.com ISBN 1-85443-217-6 For the best A-edit, go to: http://bit.ly/MrSpn6 (More text available on request).

A small series of images shot from the cockpit of an RAF Red Arrows Hawk during my time with the team during their 40th anniversary year. All pictures were shot on a Mamiya 7 6x7 medium format film camera with only 20 frames available during each of 5 x 30 minute flights. Rather than choose equipment that fed 35mm film through a high-speed motor-driven camera I opted for a larger, but more awkward camera that gave me crisp landscapes of English fields and airspace.

"College and university graduates attend a jobs and careers exhibition where British companies try their utmost to recruit new talent." These 10 images come from the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, published by Penguin in April 2009. This gallery is part of a short series relating to this book, though their titles have in some cases been adapted for this archive. They are viewed here as a showcase but will be released for sale on the 1st April 2009 at Photoshelter and Alamy or exclusively at CORBIS and therefore each file has its own restrictions which can be read within its metadata. The book pictures are reproduced in black and white but all appear here in colour.

Edit for exhibition only.

Royal Ascot is one of Europe's most famous horse race meetings and dates back to 1711. Queen Elizabeth and various members of the British Royal Family attend but it is the posh and common people and how they interact is what's interesting to the casual visitor. Wide-brimmed hats and fascinators for the ladies; top hats and tails for the men - and often the most ill-considered outfits can be seen in glorious technicolor. Otherwise, the racing behind the gates is held every June, one of the main dates on the English sporting calendar and summer social season. Over 300,000 people make the annual visit to Berkshire during Royal Ascot week, making this Europe's best-attended race meeting with over £3m prize money to be won.

The British General Election.

A small profile on the Belgravia area of West London. Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster, situated to the south-west of Buckingham Palace. Belgravia is approximately bounded by Knightsbridge to the north (the street of that name, not the district), Grosvenor Place and Buckingham Palace Road to the east, Pimlico Road to the south, and Sloane Street to the west. The westernmost streets within this area are in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and can alternatively be considered to be in Knightsbridge and Chelsea. Most of the area was owned by Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, who had it developed from the 1820s. Thomas Cubitt was the main contractor. Belgravia is characterised by grand terraces of white stucco houses, and is focused on the Belgrave Square and Eaton Square. It was one of London's most fashionable residential districts from the beginning, and remains so to this day. It is a relatively quiet district in the heart of London, contrasting with neighbouring districts which have far more busy shops, large modern office buildings, hotels, and entertainment venues. Many embassies are located in the area, especially in Belgrave Square.

A collection of images drawn from various assignments and self-initiated personal projects. From the world of work and industry (the book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is a collaboration between Alain de Botton and Richard Baker) has a strong aviation, aerospace and even aerobatic theme. Linked by visual themes and puns we see an observational, reportage style from medium film formats and digital media. Tear sheets can be viewed at bakerpictures.com (For more information: richard@bakerpictures.com).

The taboo of sudden death, whether by extremists or a drink driver, is a quandary that few know how to deal with. When passing-by in your vehicle, consider for whom and why bunches of flowers are tied to trees, posts, verges and pavements. The taboo of tragic death, whether at the hands of extremists or a drink driver, is a quandary that few of us in this country know how to deal with. In the case of road deaths, relatives are invited to lay floral tributes. Local councilors however, have other views as to what is honourable to our loved-ones, and what is acceptable from the position of driving safety. Lynn Mitchell, whose two-year-old daughter Lesley died in a road accident, regularly attaches flowers to a fence near the spot of the tragedy. "Sometimes it can be upsetting but sometimes you can get a sense of satisfaction out of it, that you getting close and doing what is right," she says. "The fence is Lesley's fence. We call it Lesley's fence. That is our place to go up and pay our respects to her." To Richard Wills, Director of Highways with Lincolnshire County Council, garish garlands of flowers alongside his byways simply put other drivers off their driving. His leaflets to recently-bereaved families are meant to deter the laying of these shrines. Simon Collister, of the Brake Safety Campaign meanwhile says that, "they remind drivers that the consequences of driving dangerously can be fatal." Spare a thought for them. As you sweep past in your vehicle consider for whom and why bunches of flowers are tied to railings, to bridges, to trees, posts, verges and pavements. It's something I decided to stop and learn about a few years ago and this work is the resulting discovery to the extent that roadside memorials have become my ghoulish pastime. I have on occasions witnessed accidents then photographed the subsequent offerings. Successive coincidences unnerved me. (More text available on request).

"They have been blamed for most of rock's ills - denim waistcoats, air guitar and the tradition of men dancing thumbs in pockets. Status Quo have never been cool. But they've rocked harder than most. And, four decades on, they're still rockin'. Richard Baker and Simon Hattenstone joined them on their 2007 tour." QUO have recorded 63 British hit singles - more than any other band - 22 of which have hit the Top Ten. The first hit was 'PICTURES OF MATCHSTICK MEN' which reached Number 7 in January 1968. FRANCIS ROSSI and RICK PARFITT are the only original members in the current QUO line up. Keyboard player ANDREW BOWN joined in 1976, JOHN 'RHINO' EDWARDS (bass) joined in 1986 and MATT LETLEY (drums) arrived in May 2000. We joined the band during their 2007 tour at Lille, it is estimated that France but Rossi and Parfitt have played over 6,000 live shows to a total audience in excess of 25 million people. In doing so, the band has travelled some four million miles and spent 23 years away from home. Go to http://www.statusquo.co.uk/ for more information. Text is by Simon Hattenstone at The Guardian. (Other images are on sale exclusively at CORBIS).

From the claustrophobia of a Nuclear submarine to the primitive hut of an island hermit: These images are a Scottish exploration of Living Space, part of the 'UK at Home' book project produced by Against All Odds Productions. ".. Taking a peek behind our front doors and documents the harmonies and paradoxes of home across the UK at the beginning of the 21st century." "During the week's assignment, I drove the Scottish Highland roads and coastal tracks looking for properties that seemed to sum up the idea of remote residential survival. But I started inside the claustrophobia of HMS Vigilant at the Royal Naval Base Clyde where Vanguard class nuclear submarines are penned, much to the disapproval of the Faslane Peace Camp, whose woodland residents I visited next to see their shacks and caravans from where they protest passionately against these same nuclear arsenals. I spent a day with former sailor and soldier Tom Leppard, otherwise known as the Leopard Man, a 72 year-old self-proclaimed hermit of 22 years who has secreted himself away on to an otherwise uninhabited island where he has built for himself a weather-roofed shelter and the close company of local nature and wildlife as company. From the extreme of 21st century technology and warfare, Tom slept in a tiny underground hut, seemingly living the very antithesis of all I experienced in a nuclear vessel, where able-bodied seamen slept almost with their cheeks resting against the smooth bodies of Intercontinental Trident missiles." "My furthest destination was the ancient Dunvegan Castle, ancestral home to Hugh McLeod, the young chieftain of the clan McLeod. Along the way, I met a home-owner living beneath mythical Viking mountains; an exterior decorator and roof repairer; a sheep breeder and found isolated cottages exposed to the fearful Atlantic weather fronts that batter this western isle."

A road journey of motifs and icons shot days after the chaos of 9/11. This essay is an extract of my experiences from New York and also Washington and Pennsylvania. "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" Pictures and notes from 'America's New War' According to the US networks, September 11th was the start of a New (holy) War. Questions outweighed answers but to help explain, the stream of militarist rhetoric from TV and radio helped a superpower come to terms with a fear and bewilderment, not seen since Pearl Harbour. In New York, Washington DC and the neighbouring states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, even liberal citizens urgently displayed star spangled banners and displayed a call-to-arms as this was after all, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. In times of extreme patriotic hysteria, I found a nation in the grip of confusion and paranoia, illustrated by news headlines and slogans. With a landscape dominated by patriotic iconography and Christian motifs, I felt compelled to merge it with contemporary, wartime messages. 'These Colors Don't Run' comes from a T-shirt slogan designed in Miami that very September afternoon and sold within days on Broadway for $10. Arriving in New York on Day 4 of what CNN called 'America's New War,' I began photographing in a city that had been traumatised by so many missing persons and angered by the desecration of its sacred skyline. The Big Apple had been shaken to its core and my story therefore describes - using metaphor and icon - how New Yorkers and their fellow-Americans reacted emotionally to the attack on not just the famous 'twin towers,' but also on its lifestyle. America's way of life had been threatened: The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave could do no more than don gas masks, cower behind the camouflage of the National Guard and plaster their Star Spangled Banners from every street corner. (More text available on request).

These landscapes are drawn from various assignments and book projects. From the skies graced by an aerobatic team; the tragic stories of roadside memorial locations; NASA and space agency junk fields; beautiful Isle of Skye in Scotland and the Indian Ocean; the developing Thames Gateway; how electricity finds its way across England; abandoned airliners in Arizona and the patriotic weeks after 9/11 - linked by visual themes and puns. All try to reveal an appreciation for the incongruous, sadness and humour of the panorama.

Editorial images from a variety of magazine assignments, published book projects and self-initiated personal work. We see 100 years of aviation; electricity; the US Air Force; tuna fishing; Olympic Greece; space junk; America on 9/11; Red Arrows aerobatic team; the world of Work and Industry and more recently, Barack Obama on multiple TVs - all linked with visual rhymes and themes.

A collection of urban images within a more specific genre of Street Photography.

Nick Leeson is the notorious rogue trader, the man who single-handedly brought the Queen's Barings bank to its knees in 1995. Sentenced to 4 1/2 years for fraud after bankrupting the London-based Bank by hiding $1.4 billion in debt he accumulated as a derivatives trader in Singapore. During his sentence served in Singapore, he was diagnosed with cancer but Leeson is now a reformed character whose tales from the financial frontline are in much demand around the world's money men who want to hear his motivational and anecdotal speeches. His book 'Rogue Trader: How I Brought Down Barings Bank and Shook the Financial World' was made into a film whose main character starred Ewan McGregor as Leeson. Nick Lesson is currently CEO of Galway United Football Club who are struggling to win in the Irish Premier Division. Leeson still plays the money markets - only this time he gambles his own money on oil. This feature was originally shot for a Russian magazine and is now cleared for immediate release (outside of the Russian Federation) with accompanying text by Peter Culshaw (peterculshaw@ukonline.co.uk)

The Barack Obama election saw London's Democrat expatriate community celebrate with private parties across the capital. These pictures were taken at Yates's bar in Leicester Square where CNN hosted a £35 a head bi-partisan get-together, Planet Hollywood where a TV screen showed non-stop live coverage and at The Hoop and Toy pub in London's South Kensington, Obama groupies watched each and every Electoral college vote come in before John McCain concede to an exhausted and emotional crowd. Later that day, on the BBC lunchtime news, cinema TV screens in the John Lewis department store displayed Obama as their top story, replaying the Chicago rally highlights and the streets of London showed the now famous family in its newspaper. And eventually, on inauguration day itself, London celebrated all over again when Democrats abroad partied in Texmex style and at a formal ball. (For more information about the Obama party contact organiser Carole Bell on +44 7786 60 50 50).

Nearing the 90th anniversary of the Armistice of 11th November 1918, we travelled to some of the Western Front's war cemeteries where my great uncle is mentioned, but has no known grave. A blog story about this trip is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-2i

A growing series of quirky window messages and perspectives from around London. Windows have been around for a long time - the Romans invaders even had a glass substance that sealed the chilly British air - and stench - from their sensitive Roman noses. Nowadays, I'm attracted to the labelling and messaging that becomes attached to the inside or outside of panes of glass, as if they are urban, public post-it notes for anything an individual wishes to share or advertise. Sometimes the message can be a warning, a cry for help or just an accidental freak of mis-spelling that somehow confuses meanings from that intended. (See also the gallery called 'Bust - The Art of Recession' which narrows down this obsession to those windows of closed businesses).

Down in Ringaskiddy and Monkstown, County Cork, Ireland, it is said that the local Pfizer factory is emitting Viagra fumes to its affected population.

When eccentric NASA inventor Charles Bell died, his rusting collection of space junk was sold at Cape Canaveral, to the amazement of space junk collectors. There are collectors, and then there was NASA electronics scientist Charles Bell. He picked up anything, and everything, especially artifacts from NASA dating to the 1960s. One day, he hoped to start a space museum. But the retired 57-year-old NASA design engineer of 37 years died Feb. 16 2000 at his home on Merritt Island, Florida. Bell's lifelong collecting passion goes public, when his amazing NASA cache and a few other things go to the auction block - at 10 a.m. today in Merritt Island. And to those who knew him, he was a collecting legend. Charles actually went out to launch sites and cut the pads down," auctioneer Dave Manor of Astor, Fla. said Friday, standing amid mountains of NASA pieces collected by Bell during the last 25 years. Bell's treasures are not catalogued, or organized. They are just there - thousands of artifacts weighing thousands of tons, worth millions. Lying heaped up in trailers and in the undergrowth, was the testament to Man's quest for space exploration, now rotting as scrap metal. There are two reassembled Atlas rockets and engines and parts from the Saturn, Apollo and Mercury during NASA's early days. (More text on request).

This year the 31st Olympiad controversially comes to London. In 2004, the Olympics returned to its birthplace in Greece after 2,000 years. Many similarities remain between the debauchery, politics and greed of ancient times. In 2004 the 29th modern Olympic circus came home to Greece, birthplace of athletics where for 1,100 continuous years, the ancients held their pagan festival of sport and debauchery. The modern games share many characteristics with its ancient counterpart. Corruption, politics and cheating interfered then as it does now and the 2004 Athens Olympiad will echo both what was great and horrid about the past. Richard Baker has photographed a light-hearted profile of life along the ancient Olympic trail amid the heat and hope of this year's Athens games. Photographing from Olympia - birthplace of the original Olympics, across the Peloponnese mountains to Marathon, he finds curiosities along the way that contrast with contemporary Athens itself as it chaotically prepares for this year's spectacle. Culturally-linked to the ancient games and under scrutiny by those nations, including Britain, bidding for the 2012 event, he looks for anachronistic puns and poignant symbols, wryly observing the ancient sites as places of pilgrimage for globe-trotting tourists while in the metropolis, he finds how the capital has delayed its plans for the next sporting frenzy. (More text available) (In addition to the Greek material, there is also work from the Hackney Wick dog racing stadium, now demolished for the east London 2012 games development).

Writer Panos Karnezis in London where he lives and writes. Author of The Convent (2010) and The Maze he is a developing writer of prize-winning fiction, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel for the acclaimed Little Infamies. Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967 and came to England in 1992. He studied engineering and worked in industry, then studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. His first book, Little Infamies (2002) is a collection of connected short stories set in one nameless Greek village, and his second book, The Maze (2004), is a novel set in Anatolia in 1922. It was shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award. Short stories by Panos Karnezis have been broadcast by BBC Radio 4 and have appeared in Granta, New Writing 11, Prospect, and Areté. He is seen out and about in West London where he lives and writes.

Labour politician Anthony Wedgewood (Tony) Benn) during his speaking tour in England.

Lying in undergrowth, a camouflaged British infantry soldier is seen looking down the telescopic sight of the new British-made Long Range L115A3 sniper rifle on Salisbury Plain, Warminster, England. Sniping means concealment, observation and assassination, a strategy the British are using more against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Swiss Lapua .338 inch rounds (8.59mm) travel at sub-sonic speeds of 936 metres/sec, finding its target accurately up to 1,100 metres. The rifle weighs 6.8kg with telescopic image-intensified scopes to 25x life size vision, made by Schmidt & Bender. Front-mounted 'suppressor' minimises the signature normally compromising snipers' position. At £23,000 each, a £4 million contract has been awarded to Accuracy International, to provide the Army, Royal Marines and RAF. The British say this is the best sniper rifle in the world. A blog story about this assignment pictures is at" http://wp.me/p3fbj-1n

Found in a garage where it had been stored virtually untouched for 50 years, this 1937 Bugatti Type 57s Atalante sports car was previewed for the first time before a Bonhams auction in Paris on February 7th 2009 when it sold for about $4.4 million. Hailed as one of the last great garage discoveries, the Bugatti was found locked in the garage of a reclusive Newcastle doctor after his death, along with an Aston Martin and a Jaguar E-Type. The Type 57S Atalante went under the hammer at the Paris Bonhams Retromobile auction on February 7, and the final selling price was 3,417,500 euros. One of just seventeen examples, the car was originally owned by Earl Howe, the first president of the British Racing Drivers Club. Registered DKY 5, the Bugatti was a familiar sight in the local sports-car scene, and passed through a few owners until Dr. Harold Carr ended up purchasing it in 1955. It was in his garage that the car sat after it was mothballed in the early 1960s until it was unearthed in 2007. The Type 57S was a sportier incarnation of the Type 57, with a high-performance engine and a shortened, low-slung frame and de Ram shock absorbers. Type 57S racers won the A.C.F., la Marne and Comminges Grand Prix races in 1936 and at Le Mans in 1937. The identity of the Type 57S' new owner has not been disclosed. Commissioned by Stern magazine, Germany.

Nunhead's occupants were some of Victorian society's hoi-palloi: Chemist, Frederick Augustus Abel, inventor of cordite is there. So is the writer Hilda Caroline Gregg (1933) whose pseudonym Sydney Carolyn Grier wrote the first of 23 novels at the age of 13); Bryan Donkin (1855) inventor of the air-tight tin can; teenage chanteur Jenny Hill (1896) whose sweet voice delighted music hall crowds; horsepower magnate Thomas Tilling (1893) owning a stable of 4,000 horses and Alfred Peek Stevens (1888) who penned the earliest known use in England of the term O.K. ("Walking in the zoo is the O.K. thing to do."). In the first 50 years of the 19th century the population of London more than doubled from 1 to 2.3 million. The city's dead were being stacked in overcrowded parish churchyards, leading to decaying matter entering the water supply leading to a series of cholera epidemics. All Saints Nunhead was consecrated in 1840 and was one of the seven great Victorian cemeteries established in a picturesque ring around the outskirts of London known as the Magnificent Seven. Queen Victoria's 40-year obsession with grief taught a superstitious nation how to mourn, inventing a whole industry of hearses, mausolea, rings, lockets and silk gloves bought for the undertakers to wear. If there was a corpse in the house, mirrors were covered and the deceased was taken out feet first to stop the head looking backwards for others to follow .. A blog story about the trip to Nunhead is at: http://wp.me/p3fbj-59

SUDAN UNVEILED: HOW DARFUR'S WOMEN ARE MAKING THEIR MARK. Words by Glyn Strong Pictures by Richard Baker Copyright May 2009. Excerpt of Glyn Strong's 3,000 word story: "Fourteen thousand feet above the barren landscape of Sudan an 18-year-old Antonov 30 carries some of the country's most powerful women to Darfur. Among them are doctors, academics and the president's legal advisor. They are heading for Al Fashir, the Northern capital, for a groundbreaking summit on challenges facing the region's women. It's hard to grasp that this group of brightly dressed ladies being served refreshments in a small VIP charter aircraft are changing the face of the largest country in Africa. But this is no mile-high tea party and these are no ordinary women. Travelling with them is a voyage of discovery that dispels myth after myth and reveals some surprising facts about political realities in Sudan." The Sudanese Women General Union has 27,000 branches all over Sudan, including Darfur. They have representatives in all rural villages, across communities of around 80 tribes and clans. The women of Sudan are wives, mothers, farmers a real force and historically, there have been female leaders. (A gallery of 217 images from Lord Ahmed's delegtaion visit to Khartoum and Al-Fashir, coinciding with the first-ever International Conference on Womens' Challenges in Darfur and ending with an audience with the Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. Text is by Glyn Strong (glynstrong@googlemail.com) and all images are for immediate sale in all territories - except the UK - and without restrictions).

SUDAN UNVEILED: HOW DARFUR'S WOMEN ARE MAKING THEIR MARK. Words by Glyn Strong Pictures by Richard Baker Copyright May 2009. Excerpt of Glyn Strong's 3,000 word story: "Fourteen thousand feet above the barren landscape of Sudan an 18-year-old Antonov 30 carries some of the country's most powerful women to Darfur. Among them are doctors, academics and the president's legal advisor. They are heading for Al Fashir, the Northern capital, for a groundbreaking summit on challenges facing the region's women. It's hard to grasp that this group of brightly dressed ladies being served refreshments in a small VIP charter aircraft are changing the face of the largest country in Africa. But this is no mile-high tea party and these are no ordinary women. Travelling with them is a voyage of discovery that dispels myth after myth and reveals some surprising facts about political realities in Sudan." The Sudanese Women General Union has 27,000 branches all over Sudan, including Darfur. They have representatives in all rural villages, across communities of around 80 tribes and clans. The women of Sudan are wives, mothers, farmers a real force and historically, there have been female leaders. (A gallery of the best 50 images from British peer Lord Ahmed's delegtaion visit to Khartoum and Al-Fashir in Darfur. Coinciding with the first-ever International Conference on Womens' Challenges in Darfur and ending with an audience with the Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. Text is available from the writer Glyn Strong (glynstrong@googlemail.com) and all images are for immediate sale in all territories - except the UK - and without restrictions).

This project is about the first year in the life of my first child, Ella. These '52' weekly images are accompanied by personal reflections and references from various nursery rhymes. This work describes the journey for my wife Lynda - from expectant, to actual motherhood, and for Ella - from new-born to one year-old. It is my hope that the viewer is reminded of the story of their own children and indeed, of themselves. For myself, the shooting and editing processes brought many personal memories back, reminding me of long forgotten events. These images are very personal and while I never doubted the project and its objectives, there are certain images that I felt weren't appropriate for an outside audience and could well have been removed. Eventually, it became clear that this was a universal story that any culture could understand Part 2 starts 18-months later after the birth of our second child, a series is in a gallery called Next of Kin: http://bit.ly/bbF06s

As a sequel to the personal project called From Womb to One Candle (Part 1), is Next of Kin, the story of the early years between Ella and her new brother Sam. The first picture is of Ella's first birthday, where her story paused 18-months earlier. Growing up in a parallel universe, the new-born and his his elder sibling, explore each others worlds while remaining both different genders and therefore separate personalities. Ella's first year is described at: http://bit.ly/apYOA0

I was commissioned by Alain de Botton to photograph his book about the world of Work. These framed pictures are from the resulting 'Pleasures and Sorrows of Work' (2009). There have been 3 resulting exhibitions from this project and the framed pictures from 2 of those venues are available for sale as limited edition Lambda prints that include printed photographs and specially-edited text directly from Alain's book mounted into the picture frame. The first 6 are from a show in Oxford and the second from an exhibition in Belgium. They're for sale in 109 x 60cm black frames, accompanied by a selected excerpt from de Botton's writing. These specially-created photographs and their unique text can all be purchased individually for £350 + VAT + shipping or as a collection by request. Jpegs of each image can also be sent for closer scrutiny. Email: richard(at)bakerpictures.com

I am auctioning 22 signed, limited edition digital Giclée prints which appeared in my 40th anniversary Red Arrows book, printed and exhibited at London's Metro Imaging. The originals were made on 6x6 or 6x7cm medium format C-type film, the negatives being scanned specifically for the book. The prints' image sizes are either 50x50cm or 50x40cm. They've been sandwiched by Metro in 5mm thick Foamalite board measuring 84x64cm which I'd recommend buyers trim to reduce their final frame/wall size. Each print alone would ordinarily cost £40 to produce and I'll set a reserve that I think is relevant to individual pictures - some being more popular than others in the past. Funds raised will be towards my daughter's university fees but also I'm giving 10% of the proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Relief (the charity affiliated to Flt Lt Matt Jarvis' illness - see page 256 in the book) who will also receive an extra 25p for every £1 through Gift Aid. This is a great opportunity for RAF Red Arrows Aerobatic Team aficionados or photography buyers to own art print(s) as the team celebrates its 50th display season. To read more about the book: http://bit.ly/9qpjYe and what people said about it: http://bit.ly/6d0yfS

The pro-Islamist cleric and spokesman for al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, Anjem Choudary is seen in Leytonstone in East London. From January 14th 2010, Islam4UK is now a banned organisation under British anti-terrorism legislation following a controversial desire to march against British army personnel in the Wiltshire town of Wooton Bassett, the location of repatriated war dead. Choudary was interviewed and briefly photographed for the German magazine Stern in 2007.

Margaret Thatcher is seen during the period of her late political career. Firstly as she speaks a year after leaving office as Prime Minister at the 1991 Conservative Party Conference, at parliament's dispatch box, caricatured by Spitting Image, meeting the Emir of Kuwait and with her late husband Dennis. Thatcher's political career has been one of the most remarkable of modern times. Born in October 1925 at Grantham, a small market town in eastern England, she rose to become the first (and for two decades the only) woman to lead a major Western democracy. She won three successive General Elections and served as British Prime Minister for more than eleven years (1979-90), a record unmatched in the twentieth century. (Source http://www.margaretthatcher.org/essential/biography.asp).

Ice Age Amateurs (From the blog entry at 'England's Pleasant Pastures') Perhaps with the exception of peoples of the south seas who have never seen a snowflake, it seems as if other members of the genus Homo are like Arctic wolves, howling at our expense. Meanwhile, British Neanderthals hide in their caves as they did in Pleistocene times, 110,000--10,000 years ago. With a summer of electioneering on the near horizon, print and TV grab the opportunity to hype up the white stuff as a sort of silly season sport. ... And just as weatherman Peter Cockcroft was warning of the imminent doom, Sainsburys' shelves resembled a corner shop whose residents have just learned of an invasion of Wellsian tripods. No eggs, Porridge nor potatoes and little bread was to be located. I trudged over to Dulwich Village on icy pavements instead. A Southwark environmental team were convening opposite the warming glows of the bookshop to discuss how they would distribute the grit. An east European dragged his yellow wheelbarrow down Turney Road but managed just 100 yards before stopping, out of breath. The supervisor was now out of sight and he slumped against a London Plain for a smoke. I wondered how many more feet of paths the grit would reach for the benefit of homeward mums and commuters. Our sceptered isle is apparently under attack from extreme meteorology and as if these were times of climactic catastrophe we think we are losing our sense of civilisation - like in The Road. When such a crisis looms and precipitation descends, so do media-invented metaphors and alliteration. As for bloggers, they're on that gritting wagon too. For the full text, go to this blog entry at England's Pleasant Pastures: http://bit.ly/8rWrJ0

Artist Yinka Shonibare's artwork Nelson's Ship in a Bottle on the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. Shonibare said his version of HMS Victory with its textile sails with African and batik prints reflects the multicultural and diverse capital. The 2.35m high ship inside a specially-made glass bottle, which is a 1:29 scale replica of the original HMS Victory, will be in place for 18 months. 37 large sails are made of patterns which are commonly associated with African dress and culture. The patterns also look back at the path of colonialism as the patterns were inspired by Indonesian batik design, which were mass produced by the Dutch and sold to the colonies in West Africa. Turner Prize-nominated Shonibare said: "For me its a celebration of London's immense ethnic wealth."

More text in the blog 'On the Wall' http://bit.ly/95H9nq Quiet places of antiquity speak louder when deserted so it was dawn when I left the car at Steel Rigg as early blue Northumbrian light gathered .. I heard the early calls of kestrels and sheep and the Michelin drone of car tyres on the B6318 below. Fifty miles south was the rest of England while to the north was Kielder Forest and the modern Borders. A South-Westerly blew and I hauled up my rucksack. Here a Roman once stood shivering, his back to the cold and eyes fixed to the north while scanning the forests for a blood-thirsty enemy. Hadrian's 4.5m high Wall was 80 Roman miles (73.5 miles, 117km) long and so important was it to secure its length that up to 10% of the Roman army total force were stationed here. Like the concrete curtain that draws across Gaza from Israeli control, Hadrian's stranglehold on the locals was total ..

I'm interested in how depictions of the natural world, of wildlife and often an idyllic perspective of tradition, is being absorbed into the pseudo-landscape. This theme will continue so watch this space.

A growing series of landscapes that contain only one common denominator.

As part of the Festival della Creativita in Florence, fourteen images currently form an exhibition at Pisa's Galileo airport, Pisa from 'A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary'. In the summer of 2009, photographer Richard Baker and essayist Alain de Botton were commissioned by London Heathrow Airport's owners to become their first ever writer and photographer in residence. With the creative freedom to say and photograph what they felt and saw, they have created an uplifting and unique journey through the days and nights of the UK's largest airport. While de Botton was installed in the middle of Terminal 5 on a raised platform with a laptop connected to screens, enabling passengers to see what he is writing and to come and share their stories, Baker was given free reign to experience one of the world's busiest airports from the perspective of both passengers and of those workers who daily keep the aviation hub up and running. Despite excellent credentials, access was bureaucratically complicated but areas where signs indicated 'No Photography' were places where Richard was eventually allowed to wander largely unhindered. From the British Airways crews and aircraft; refuellers and baggage handlers; the security teams; in-flight meal kitchens to peddling Paramedics it also covers the everyday emotional reaction of parting lovers and reunited families; the glorious cathedral-like architecture and the night time quiet. The resulting book is a meditation upon the nature of place, time, and our daily lives. It explores the magical and the mundane, personal and collective experiences and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious site. Like all airports, Heathrow is a 'non-place' that we by definition want to leave, but it also provides a window into many worlds - through the thousands of people it dispatches every day.

Book jpegs for Cecilia Mackay.

The pictures of the Queen Elizabeth Hall here are shown as reference for the Living Architecture competition but can be downloaded (at 1200 pixels) on request if their usage is restricted to reference and no print or on-line publication, external distribution or reproduction is intended. If you wish to download, please email me with your company details and I'll reply with a link to allow this. Thank you, Richard.

Images of the Mokveh belonging to the Sternberg Centre for Judaism, Finchley, London. Commissioned by writer Alain de Botton for his latest book "Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion." This material is embargoed until publication some time in 2011.

Poundbury is the visionary model village that Charles, Prince of Wales sought to develop in 1993 as a successful and pioneering town near Dorchester, England. Built on land owned by his own Duchy of Cornwall to challenge otherwise poor post-war trends in town planning and to some extent following the New Urbanism concept from the US except that the design influences are European.

A gallery of thematic coincidences carefully edited sequences of street incidents. Using colour, circumstance and form as threads. They originate from the early 90s to the present and include the workman; dogs; faces; mannequins; backdrops; seasides; spillages. Returning from aviation projects (Red Arrows, 2005) I have been drawn again into public places, spurred on after reports of farcical incidents when tourists were suspected of terrorist surveillance. It's hugely exciting (and overwhelming) to venture from home and take street pictures. But while it is an exercise of unconstrained, spontaneous possibilities there can be no better examples of wasted days when walking pavements yields nothing but sore feet. People and landscapes are fickle and it's also easy to become paranoid at what one might miss simply by looking say, a few degrees to the left, mere feet from where the most magical moment has occurred. While I prefer to seek the overly complex and complicated I tend to find the minimal and simple; the poignant and quietly incongruous. This isn't so much an annoyance as a surprise to me that I come home with twos and threes of people and objects rather than multiples. Outs become stock, laden with suggestive conceptual keywords: Worry; nerves; suspicion; tension; romance and oddity. I would urge the viewer to see this gallery as a slideshow in full-screen mode and to watch until the end, where many of my favourite pictures have been deliberately placed. And if you care to help me edit this work, I will willingly send you an invite to rate the images within a lightbox. Street Photography blog: http://ukstreetcollective.blogspot.com

A collection of images for the benefit of Reach Marketing - specifically about the business of logistics parks and warehouses. Thereafter, the edit continues into Heathrow Airport; Canary Wharf; The European Space Agency; The Red Arrows and miscellaneous of corporate HQs in London and Europe. I have tried to include imagery that takes in scale, beauty, modernity and design - with and without the human figure. And lastly, a corporate folio PDF that can be downloaded. Richard Baker.

A young collection of dogs, their companions and the canine world they inhabit.

This project is about the first year in the life of my first child, Ella. These '52' weekly images are accompanied by personal reflections and references from various nursery rhymes. This work describes the journey for my wife Lynda - from expectant, to actual motherhood, and for Ella - from new-born to one year-old. It is my hope that the viewer is reminded of the story of their own children and indeed, of themselves. For myself, the shooting and editing processes brought many personal memories back, reminding me of long forgotten events. These images are very personal and while I never doubted the project and its objectives, there are certain images that I felt weren't appropriate for an outside audience and could well have been removed. Eventually, it became clear that this was a universal story that any culture could understand Part 2 starts 18-months later after the birth of our second child, a series is in a gallery called Next of Kin: http://bit.ly/bbF06s

In the home city of the de' Medicis - that banking and political family dynasty that ruled Tuscany from the late-14th to the mid-16th centuries - the Renaissance is a thing of the past. Within the Uffizi galleries the Renaissance era seems a sugary coating in the city's heritage when outside, amid the bitterness of an Italian street, we see what a dystopia modern Florence really is. Where any souvenir kiosk graces a street corner, the most featured genitalia in history - more than the brothels of Pompei - the modest uncircumcised genitalia from David's 17 feet tall marble statue shaped between 1501 and 1504 by Michelangelo is now printed on to boxer shorts exactly where the opening slot conveniently lets a bloke wee away his Peroni in the via Corti. The face of a young Francesco I de' Medici adorns a construction screen, sporting a single marker penned tear while blue cable piping sprouts like an industrial Triffid from the underground concrete society. It is as if the spirits of the dynasty are posthumously mourning the slow death of their great city that once led every aspect of European thinking. By the death of Cosimo III in 1723, Tuscany was arguably both morally and fiscally bankrupt and today, without tour group gratuities, hotel surcharges and the covert ristorante coperto, Florence would decline all over again. This is an excerpt of a blog post at England's Pleasant Pastures: http://wp.me/p3fbj-be

Preparing for Vogue Magazine's Fashion Festival in Bond Street.

The fine artist, parody and living sculpture knows as Pandemonia, leaves the London Fashion Show in London's Strand. For more information: http://www.pandemonia99.com

As queues lengthen and arguments between the government, airlines and airport operator BAA continue months before the the 2012 Olympics, this is a look behind the security doors at the UK Border in Heathrow's Terminal 5. Originally shot for the Alain de Botton book 'A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary'.

(Updated April 15th 2012). The British Labour peer, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was provisionally suspended from the Labour Party after remarks he made suggesting that a bounty of £10m be made for the capture of Tony Blair and Presidents Obama and Bush for war crimes. He is seen here during a 2009 visit to the war-torn province of Darfur to attend the first-ever international Conference on Womens' Challenge in Darfur, Sudan hosted by its govenor in his own compound and received as an honoured guest by the controversial Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir in his palace in central Khartoum. Nazir, Baron Ahmed (born 1958) is a member of the House of Lords, having become the United Kingdom's first Muslim life peer in 1998. This set of 9 images is from a wider edit shot during Lord Ahmed's recce trip to Khartoum and Darfur.

Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is seen in 2009 after receiving a gift of a pen and mints for the head of state's two wives, from British Labour peer, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, in a reception room of his palace in central Khartoum. President al-Bashir is seated against a gold leaf backdrop of Islamic texts in a reception room of his palace in central Khartoum. He is head of the National Congress Party and has been in power since October 1993 and appears across the Sudanese capital on airport posters and books and in shopping malls.

Oh! but how the English love to moan about the weather. Not only that but during an enforced drought in southern England when the use of garden hosepipes were banned after another year of insufficient rainfall, torrential and persistant wet stuff affected the already dampened spirits of Londoners during news of a double-dip recession - the rain keeps falling and the drought order remains in force.

Days before the the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee weekend (her 60th year on Britain's throne), elaborate displays of patriotic flags and royal portraits adorn London's streets and windows. Weeks before the Olympics come to the UK, a multi-cultural Britain is gearing up for a weekend and summer of pomp and patriotic fervour as their monarch celebrates 60 years on the throne and across Britain, flags and Union Jack bunting adorn towns and villages. To be continued over the Jubilee weekend of 2-4 June 2012.

Work in progress around the 2012 Olympic fence at Stratford.

A full and continuing edit of material made from Day 1 of the London 2012 Olympics. From road cycling hero Bradley Wiggins on his closing Kilometer for Gold and the Brit's darling of track Victoria Pendleton but mostly, the spectators who line the routes and roadways and ultimately, inside the Olympic Park. This is a free-spirited, personal look at the 30th Olympiad coming after visits on the London 2012 site during its transformation, viewable here: http://bit.ly/MUJz4H and a visit to ancient Olympia here: http://bit.ly/MnwWPB

A selection of work from the 19990s within the old Roman walls that now make up the Square Mile - The City of London. This is largely personal work plus material from magazine assignments of the day. I continue to walk these ancient streets, adding new material every week.

Loondon 16/1/13: Aftermath of a helicopter crash into the crane constructing the residential skyscraper St George Tower at Vauxhall in south London. At approximately 08.00 the aircraft apparently crashed into the crane in freezing fog, landing in the road next to a mainline railway line. The tower is 181 metres (594 ft) tall with 49 storeys, now the tallest residential building in the United Kingdom. Its crane that operated on the side of the tower was torn away, landing below.

(Possibly) the original 12 images which won for me 3rd prize in the World Press 1994, Daily Life Stories.

Here are my best 60 images for 2014. From the most recent then throughout my year including the forthcoming book 'Risk Wise: Nine Everyday Adventures' to my street pictures in London and New York and travels in Britain and France.

Thousands of south Londoners joined a community protest on the streets of Brixton, south London to protest about the regeneration of businesses by owner Network Rail's decision to redevelop property under the railway arches, forcing many to vacate and leave the area, removing the local spirit of Brixton and with the fear of being replaced with branded shops.

I photographed the selection of Gurkhas at various locations in Nepal during 1996/97 on assignment for Le Figaro, a French magazine. While there, I visited recruiting stations in the hills each November, at altitudes ranging from 4,000-12,000 feet. After initial selection, 7,000 are accepted for further tests from which 700 are sent down here to Pokhara in the shadow of the Himalayas. That year, only 160 of the best succeeded in the journey to the UK. The Gurkhas have been supplying youth for the British army since the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Book covers sourced directly from commissioned projects or from usage via Corbis/Getty.

A gallery specifically for The School of Life and Sky showing emotion, success, achievement, love, pride, effort, challenges, involvement and teamwork. All photography is sourced from assignments, personal projects and journeys.

Irish ploughman Tom Nixon from Operation Centaur leads Shire horses Nobby and Heath as they harrow an on-going heritage wheat-growing area in Ruskin Park, a public green space in the borough of Southwark, on 9th February 2018, in London, England. The Friends of Ruskin Park are again growing heritage wheat and crops together with the Friends of Brixton Windmill and Brockwell Bake Association. Shire horses are descended from the medieval warhorse but are a breed under threat. Operation Centaur, which maintains the last working herd of Shires in London is dedicated to the protection and survival of the breed. Centaur is an organization set up to promote the relevance of the horse as a contemporary working animal in partnership with humans. This takes the form of heritage skills in conservation and agriculture, transportation, discovery, learning and therapy.

The merchandise, flags and the patriotism - one week before the royal wedding of Prince Harry & Meghan Markle at Windsor (30 images).

Colombians living in London watch the World Cup knockout match between their home country and England. As told by the faces of young supporters, they scored in the last minutes of full-time but ultimately, England won on penalties. There is a 15,000-strong Colombian community in the UK with many in Elephant & Castle, south London where bars and TV screens broadcast this intense footballing showdown.

After being closed indefinitely to all traffic due to structural faults, pedestrians walk across Hammersmith Bridge, on 11th April 2019, in west London, England. Safety checks revealed "critical faults" and Hammersmith and Fulham Council has said it's ben left with no choice but to shut the bridge until refurbishment costs could be met. The government has said that between 2015 and 2021 its is providing £11bn of support to the 132-year-old bridge.