Dirk Baker

Most of my photography focuses on the natural world.  I enjoy a wide variety of techniques and subjects including macro, astral/night skies, long exposure, bird and other wildlife, floral, and landscape photography.
When I first caught the photography bug in the 1980s, it was certainly a different world.  Back then, the image was what you got and modifying it - even just cropping - was near anathema.  At least that’s how I learned it.  In the world of digital photography, and with the ease of powerful post-processing tools, modifying images seems taken as a matter of course.  To me, however, this quickly becomes a different art form and to call it photography can be misleading.

Here are some core values I hold to: 
Honesty and transparency - if I've done any significant post-processing to an image, I will say so.  I know that might sound like giving myself an out - what qualifies as 'significant'?  To me, this is anything beyond minor cropping, touching up a few dust specks, or minor filtering or adjusting to get an image to print correctly.

A conservation and land ethic - respect for the land and life that depends on it.  This is a fundamental and lifelong value to me and means I will do my best not to disturb wildlife and to leave the land as I found it, if not better.  Here is where cropping an image rather than trying to get closer to an animal is a more-than- acceptable form of post-processing.  This ethic also means that I will not stage images in nature - I won’t place or move things to ‘enhance’ the composition.  Everything in my images will be as I found it.
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​Dirk's Website: https://www.mountaintinker.net
IG: @mountain_tinker_imagery