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Landscape(52 images)
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...
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  • Looking down vertically upon the Hawk jet aicraft of the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, the team loop over agricultural countryside during an In-Season Practice (ISP) training flight near their base at RAF Scampton. Roman Ermine Street road is a diagonal line through the centre, dissecting wisps of organic white smoke left hanging in the air. Reforming in front of a local crowd at the airfield they work through a 25-minute series of display manoeuvres that are loved by thousands at summer air shows. Freshly-ploughed English fields with properties, roads, hedgerows plus former nuclear silos are seen below. After some time off, spare days like this are used to hone their manual aerobatic and piloting skills before re-joining the air show circuit. Since 1965 they've flown over 4,000 shows in 52 countries.   . By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Looking out to the Mediterranean Sea from the Akrotiri Peninsular, Cyprus, we see the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, practising their display finale, the Vixen Break, a show-stopping manoeuvre of their 25-minute air show display routine. A rusted and crumbling hulk of a ship lies in the shallow surf and the Hawk jets used by the Red Arrows fan out above it using red, white and blue smoke. It is a calm sea near the shoreline and the shipwreck's remains provide a sad foreground to the dynamic flying beyond making a graphic landscape. 'Datum' is an axis on which the Red Arrows focus their displays, from where the whole show is visible at the crowd's centre. 'The Wreck' is but one of a series of datum points selected by the team leader at short notice to simluate diverse geographical features and wind directions. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • A red Hawk jet aircraft belonging to the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, is parked in the hangar at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, the home base for the squadron. Night is falling with only blue daylight remaining in the western sky and the warm light from the hangar spills out of the giant open doors on to the concrete. The aircraft awaits attention from the engineer's night-shift who service and maintain all 11 of the famous red aerobatic jets before flying the next morning. The hangaran original World War 2 shelter for the Lancaster bombers of 617 Dambusters squadron who attacked the damns of the German Ruhr valley on 16th May 1943 using the Bouncing Bomb. The Red Arrows use this and nearby offices administrative nerve-centre for the 90-plus displays they perform a year. . By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Two Hawk jets from the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, almost touch in mid-air at an altitude of approximately 4,100 feet in the Mediterranean skies above Cyprus. The texture of mottled cirrus cloud provides a soft background for the  aircraft which approach each other at a combined air speed of approximately 800 miles per hour (1,200 kph). The Opposition Loop is flown by the two pilot partners known as the Synchro Pair who fly independently of the other seven in the second-half of their 25-minute show. The two jets have vegetable dye and derv (diesel fuel) smoke mixture coloured red, blue or white. Here it traces the paths of both airplanes which curve from the edges of the frame to the centre (center). To the crowds far below, both look as if they are on collision course but wil safely pass within feet of each other. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • On a foggy Spring morning at RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire, a yellow MoD airfield telephone stands alone in the mist. Scampton is the headquarters of the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team who largely have the sole use of its air space. The ageing equipment is a push-button type and its colour matches the painted stripes on the damp, concreted ground. The gloomy mist is obscuring buildings and hangars in the background and flying has been cancelled so an eerie stillness has settled on the normally busy facility that would normally host up to six red Arrows sorties (flight) a winter's day. Communications with remote areas of the aerodrome is often necessary to alert the air traffic control tower. Only qualified personnel are to use this system, just as drivers must have undertaken an MoD vehicle course.  . By photographer Richard Baker
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  • An old fashioned pair of public address speakers have been attached to a no access sign overlooking the Northumberland countryside at the Kielder Air Show. Here, the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, are to perform and the squadron's commentator - known as Red 10 - will be describing the 25-minute routine performed in front of a few hundred people, probably the smallest of the Red Arrows audiences. The Hawk aircraft will be flying over the borderland between England and Scotland during this display which has attracted a local crowd to this pretty landscape. This primitive method of amplification makes for it charmingly quirky. Tangled electrical wires and an extension reel is low-tech and makeshift, vastly different to other shows where digital sound quality reproduces audio to many of thousands of spectators. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • The elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, fly over an area known as the Cliffs on the Akrotiri peninsular of southern Cyprus. We see a barren scene of scrub and in the air, the team are in their signature 'Diamond Nine' formation, climbing up in a long arc through the blue sky and traversing above the dusty, featureless landscape where a naval Transit marker in the shape of a giant red arrow aids coastal shipping to safely navigate but which is missing some panels. The nine Hawk jets pass-by as a tight 'nine-ship' (the term used to describe nine aircraft in close formation) during a training flight in the clear Mediterranean skies. They return to this stretch of Cypriot coast each Spring to complete their rigorous winter schedule before the UK's air show display season. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Banking hard right over the agricultural Lincolnshire countryside are the elite 'Red Arrows', Britain's prestigious Royal Air Force aerobatic team, who have commenced an In-Season Practice (ISP) training flight near their base at RAF Scampton. They turn at a ninety degree angle, two trailing white organic smoke before reforming in front of a local crowd at the airfield and working through a 25-minute series of display manoeuvres that are loved by thousands at summer air shows. Their objective is to appear perfectly spaced from a ground perspective. Freshly-ploughed English fields with properties, roads and hedgerows are seen below. After some time off, spare days like this are used to hone their manual aerobatic and piloting skills before re-joining the air show circuit. Since 1965 they've flown over 4,000 shows in 52 countries.   . By photographer Richard Baker
    Red_Arrows7...jpg
  • Set in a field of corn, but once the scene of heav fighting in the first world war, a visitor leaves the tiny cemetery of Redan Ridge near the village of Serre-les-Puisieux where British war dead from the Battle of the Somme are buried. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • © Richard Baker / IPG 2002.Individual - Portfolio set..A white-washed window in Victoria, London... By photographer Richard Baker
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  • London's empty Goodge Street with traffic direction arrows are seen outside the derelict Middlesex Hospital building whose windows are boarded up with plywood. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Unused car parking bays and arrow outside newly-opened London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 building. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • In front of an industrial doorway with a safety handrail and near empty parking bay markings, a stencilled arrow points from left to right at the DIRFT warehouse logistics park in Daventry, Northamptonshire England. Bright light glows from the warehouse wall, shining on to the car park creating an almost daylight landscape. This 365 acre site off Junction 18 of the M1 motorway is a hub for road, rail and service infrastructure, some 2.3m sq.ft. of distribution and manufacturing floorspace had been constructed by 2004 and occupiers including Tesco?s, Tibbett & Britten plc, Ingram Micro, Royal Mail, the W.H. Malcolm Group, Eddie Stobart Ltd, Wincanton and Exel, have been attracted to this logistics location. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • The last person to leave the office is a conscientious lady employee of the biscuit and snack manufacturer United Biscuits at their UK headquarters at Hayes Park North near London England. Seen in a window surrounded bright ceiling lights, the female sits at her desk tying up loose ends before leaving for the day. As darkness falls outside, the red lights from tail lights streak across the picture and the green grass on a landscaped bank is lit by light posts. None of her work colleages have stayed on, preferring to depart to see their families at home on this winter night. Perhaps this career woman is single and an ambitious member of the team who can dedicate more time to her job.. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • NASA Space Junk Auction.Gantries and tracking equipment in the wasteland..Rocket gantries and tracking equipment left to rust in the back yard of NASA scientist Charles Bell. Assorted rocket paraphenalia. At the very back of the auction site, a whole jungle of Apollo and Shuttle junk was buried in the undergrowth having been forgotten there for decades. Here we see gantries and tracking (communications) structures. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Rusting Europropulsion Ariane 5 rocket booster parts lie on tropical wasteland at European Space Agency's Kourou space center. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Seen through the window of Coates Wine Bar which contains small square patterns of frosted glass, the arched structure of Broadgate offices in the City of London, appears beyond. Trees whose leaves are turning into autumnal colour can also be seen blending into the landscape.  Broadgate is a vast estate of office buildings developed in the Thatcher years, sitting astride the redeveloped Liverpool Street mainline station. We see the classic architectural feature that gives strength to large buildings - the load-bearing arch. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Barbara Christie, 58, sits alone in her conservatory at Swordale House overlooking Beinn Na Caillich (The Hill of the Old Woman) mountain. It is nearly dark at this northern latitude and it looks cosy inside this house with its warm and inviting lights. Barbara's father built this family home and she has lived in this house all her life apart from when studying in Edinburgh many years ago. It sits on a tiny road near Broadford on the Isle of Skye, beneath the magnificent hill whose myth goes back to a Norse Princess saga. Barbara sits in the more recent addition to the house, a conservatory that she enjoys sitting and reading away from her Summer Bed and Breakfast guests. Image taken for the 'UK at Home' book project published 2008. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Across the calm waters of a Scottish bay, isolated houses and crofts sit before the dramatic Cuillin Mountains that rise up in the distance on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Sunlight from unusually fine weather spreads across this beautiful landscape seen from the road to Dunvegan, near the hamlet of Harlosh. Farming practices have changed irreversably in a generation and many southerners have English accents rather than that of native Scots islanders as city dwellers from the far south seek an alternative to urban lifestyles. The weather can have adverse effects on those unprepared for such wild conditions, especially during harsh winters when violent storms batter these Atlantic coasts. But old crofts have been converted to bed and breakfast homes, catering for tourist visitors who adore this form of idyllic escapism. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Upper-deck chair and wheel with navigator's carpet board a traditional dhoni fishing boat on the Indian Ocean, Maldives. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • As winter fog lifts, the waters of the River Thames clear to reveal an eerie landscape of industrial river life and architecture at Gravesend, Kent England. It is late-morning and in the hazy distance on the northern river bank, steam clouds near the double twin chimneys of npower's 1400MW coal fired Tilbury power station (powering 1.4 million homes using ?biomass? fuels and low-sulphur coal) which rise above the passing ghostly bulk of a cargo freighter on its last miles of its voyage from open sea into the Thames Estuary and on to Tilbury Docks. Historically, the Thames has long been a route for shipping that kept the capital supplied and although the docks have seen huge decreases in traffic and volume since the second world war, Tilbury remains a busy hub for containerized vessels arrivng from all over the world. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • The last light of day fades on the still waters of Sgeir Nam Biast, a bay overlooking Waternish Headland, near Dunvegan, north-west Isle of Skye, Scottish Highlands. A solitary light bulb glows from an upstairs room in this isolated cottage across the calm lake. The weather is perfect but unusual for one of the wildest parts of Britain. Farming practices have changed irreversably in a generation and many residents have English accents rather than that of native Scots islanders as city dwellers from the far south seek an alternative to urban lifestyles. The weather can have adverse effects on those unprepared for such wild conditions, especially during harsh winters when violent storms batter these Atlantic coasts. But old crofts have been converted to bed and breakfast homes, catering for tourist visitors who adore this form of idyllic escapism.... By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Aerial view of a passing boat and one of 1,192 coral  inhabited and deserted islands in the Islamic Republic of Maldives. By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Lone remote crofter's farmhouse sits isolated beneath the 2,542 foot Glamaig mountain in dramatic landscape at Moll, Skye By photographer Richard Baker
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  • Athens car park. With parked cars in the foreground, the Parthenon sits high above a street in the Athens suburb of Makrigianni. The 29th modern Olympic circus came home to Greece in 2004 and the birthplace of athletics was among the woodland of Ancient Olympia 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. By photographer Richard Baker
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