lee baker retoucing portfolio 020116

L E E B A K E R

[email protected] 07724611589

C R E A T I V E R E T O U C H E R & I M A G E C O M P O S I T O R

P O R T F O L I O

MY NAME IS LEE BAKER and I have now been working in the print and design

industry for over twenty three years.

Originally, I started out in print finishing, then moved into typesetting on the

Apple Mac, and then onto pre-press/reprographics. Later, I applied myself to

the fields of graphic design and artworking. Then finally I found my niche and

excelled as a creative retoucher and image compositor for a company in the

music industry that specialises in designing album covers – StormStudios.

This portfolio contains some of the images I have enjoyed working on over

the last twelve years at StormStudios, alongside the late Storm Thorgerson

(co-founder of Hipgnosis).

Some of these image are fairly simple in their construction, while other

required me to not only think outside the box, but to transcend beyond so that

the box isn’t even there, or perhaps trying it’s very best to peacefully coexist

in a parallel universe.

At StormStudios I have had the opportunity to work with some of the world’s

big bands, including: Muse, Pink Floyd, Biffy Clyro, Audioslave, 10cc, Pendulum,

The Steve Miller Band to name but a few.

A B O U T M E

L E E B A K E R / 2

At StormStudios, there is a tried and tested formula for creating our images.

Firstly, after and initial meeting with the band/artist to find out from the horses

mouth, “What’s it all about?”, we would then read the lyrics and listen to the

music... a lot. And when I say a lot, I really mean it. This is the only way to get

a real feeling of their message. We try to get inside the musicians’ heads and

really try to understand for ourselves what it is all about. Then and only then

are we able to come up with ideas. Some of these ideas could be tiny fragments

that bind together and lead on to greater things, while some of these initial

thoughts are strong from the start .

Then, we develop these ideas and refine them, until we have about twenty

or so solid ideas in the way of hand drawn roughs. These roughs are then

scrutinised by all of us until we whittle them down to only ten or so that we

feel really do the music justice. After all, the imagery is an extension of the

music, an interpretation of how the sound could manifest itself physically.

The roughs are then submitted to the band/artists along with a brief

explanation of what the idea is all about and then they make their choice,

sometimes they may only choose one, but sometimes they will choose several.

Once a decision has been made, we work out the best way to shoot the

image. Locations need to be found, models sourced, props gathered, costumes

acquired and sometimes if needed, sculptures need to be designed and built.

Then we can shoot it.

It is always useful for me to attend shoots, even if I’m not art directing, as I

can let the photographer and art director know what sort of shots I think will

be required to make the final image work .

After the shoot, we study the digital shots and choose the ones that will work.

Sometimes I may produce three or four quick rough comps to see what will

work before working on the final file and even then several drafts may be made

before we are finally happy and show the client.

Our images are designed to inspire and provoke a reaction to the viewer and

make them want to know more. They are the hint to the beginning of a story.

For me, they really are a “Once upon a time...”

I hope you enjoy this small selection of my work.

L E E B A K E R / 3

I view the role of being a creative retoucher,as a way of making the impossible probable

and the improbable possible.“ ”

01 / LEISURE CRUISE

05 / GOOSE

02 / CLOUD SPEAKER

06 / THE STEVE MILLER BAND

03 / SLOW EARTH

04 / BIFFY CLYRO

07 / SCRUTINY

L E E B A K E R / 4

C O N T E N T SC O N T E N T S / Part 1 – How each image was made

L E E B A K E R / 5

C O N T E N T S / Part 2 – Addi t ional images

08 / THE ANSWER

09 / VITALIC

10 / THE PLEA

11 / KORDA MARSHALL

12 / VBOOKZ

13 / TIM FREKE

14 / GREG FRIEDMAN

15 / HAIR & GLAMOUR

P A R T O N E / How each image was made

01 / LEISURE CRUISE / LEISURE CRUISE / ALBUM COVER / 2013

Leisure Cruise are an American band and I was fortunate enough to work on their self-titled debut album.

The idea behind the music was about leaving a broken Earth to colonise a new planet. Four designs were

chosen to accompany different releases, each featuring naked people heading through barren landscapes toward

an as yet unknown final destination.

One of the biggest concerns for any shoot is budget, and this was no exception. The upside was that we were

able to combine several shoots into one trip to California, but the downside was that the combined budgets

still restricted the amount of people who could fly out on the trip; photographer/driver, art director,

female model/assistant and male model/second driver.

The models were shot walking into the distance along a dusty highway up until the first telegraph pole and

then adjusted in Photoshop for weight, skin colour and hair back in the studio in the UK... oh and underwear

removal. I then added a lot more figures travelling into the distance to add to the scale and a heightened sense

of drama. The ark was a small model of the Titanic that was built, doctored and painted, then later striped into

the comp. The telegraph poles were kept in to add an additional sense of scale to the whole image.

L E E B A K E R / 7

plate foreground figures midground figures mid to background figures background figures ark

FINAL IMAGE & ORIGINAL ROUGH

L E E B A K E R / 8

LEISURE CRUISE / DOUBLE DIGIT LOVE CD SINGLE / 2013

The blimp in this image was originally a large

balloon covered with a white sheet, tied with string

and held up on the top of a ladder.

I used Photoshop to add more strings around the

balloon, adjust the balloon’s shape and give it more

of a semi-translucent feel, along with removing the

models underwear and adding shadows.

L E E B A K E R / 9

02 / CLOUD SPEAKER / ADVERTISEMENT / 2013

Most of the time at StormStudios we like to shoot things for real... well as real as we possibly can and then

put them together in the computer afterwards, but it is highly unlikely that we would find cube shaped clouds

anywhere in the world and especially on demand. So, the clouds were shot separately and went through various

stages of development to create their cube like appearance.

To do this, I created a palette of different whispy brushes and using the cloud shots as a base, I masked out

several rough cube shapes using multiple layers to give a sense of depth. Then chipped away at the masks and

added back bits here and there. The art director wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted and gave me carte blanche

to create something that worked for the both of us. We decided that rather than sticking completely to the

rough, with fully formed cloud cubes rolling in from the distance, we decided that it would be more fun, and

visually striking if the clouds became more cube shaped the closer they got to the viewer, and that the clouds

on the horizon were being created by some sort of ‘cube cloud generator’.

The image is all about sound and listening, so what better animal to use than a hare with lovely long ears,

but alas the ears were still not long enough, so I extended them, but not too much so that they would become

too comical. This was a fun piece to work on with a lot of creative freedom to experiment.

hills and sky foreground grass

L E E B A K E R / 10

foreground hares mid to background hares clouds clouds

03 / SLOW EARTH / LATITUDE AND 023 / ALBUM COVER / 2012

This idea started with a thought about trees grow very slowly and people moving very fast which is why we

are not really aware of any immediate change in them. Instead of a slow earth, we then imagined slow people,

held back by sticky stuff, which made it difficult for them to keep going.

It was shot on a freezing cold day on the wet sands of Bristol. The art director was attempting to use weighted

down lengths of cling film and strands of PVA glue he had created prior the shoot for the sticky stuff, but in the

warmth of the studio it was decided that they just didn’t work, especially for me. Rather than drag the models

out into the cold once more, I suggested that the art director draw me a guide of how he wanted the stickiness

to look and I would go against the norm and create it all in Photoshop.

I looked at various types of gooey/sticky stuff, ranging from hagfish slime to the kind of stuff that was used

in the sci-fi and horror movies as reference, and I was rather pleased with the end result. It all came together

nicely, and the addition of a reflection – also created in Photoshop – really held it all together, just like the sticky

stuff holding back the people.

sky ground front figure front goo guide back figure back goo guide


04 / BIFFY CLYRO / OPPOSITES / ALBUM COVER / 2012

Opposites is a double album composed of ‘before’ and ‘after’ a time of oppression and negativity, and a time

of recovery and positiveness. The idea of a ‘Tree of Life’ was suggested, but as the album was entitled Opposites,

we felt an opposite would also be relevant, a ‘Tree of Death’ being the obvious choice.

The tree of life is a common feature in many cultures, and is primarily concerned with the interconnectedness

of things, so obviously the opposite would be the tree of death being about disconnectedness.

We chose Iceland in order to find epic rock’n’roll landscapes to shoot in and we also wanted waterfalls, which

struck us as suitable forceful imagery for the band. We had a tree built from good old MDF and then shipped it

off to Iceland to be photographed. It was shot in various locations with a variety of things hanging from it to

symbolise various aspects of the music.

When I was given the photographs in the studio, I produced four different location versions that would be

used throughout the double album package. In some instance the original sculpting of the MDF was kept, but

in others the relief of the MDF was blended together and a bark effect added to give the tree an entirely

different feel. I also decided to start afresh in each instance with a blank empty tree and then add the objects

on where I wanted them to be rather than using the ones that were shot in the original photographs.

plate tree bones scissors extra scissors extra scissors



BIFFY CLYRO / OPPOSITES / ALBUM IMAGES / 2012


BIFFY CLYRO / OPPOSITES ALBUM BOX SET COVER / 2012

Once I had finished retouching the four images, it

was decided that the trees were not rock’n’roll

enough, so I was presented with this scratchy rough

from Storm and asked to make the tree look as if it

had been blown by a strong wind for a thousand

years. I broke the tree down into its separate

elements and did just that.

I really think the bent tree is a very striking piece

and I was very pleased that it was used for the

album cover front and that this alternative version

of the bent tree was used for the box set, along with

posters and billboard ads.

05 / GOOSE / SYNRISE / ALBUM COVER / 2010

This image, for the Belgium electronica band Goose, symbolises the needle of a record player about to slip

into a lone vinyl groove.

A reasonably straight ditch was found in Cambridge and lined with thick rubber slabs, but due to the usual

budget constraints, we only had a few of them, so they were shot, then moved, shot again and moved again,

and so on and so forth, and then I stitched them together in Photoshop to create one continuous groove.

Yes it would have probably been far easier to just fake the groove, but that’s just it, it would have looked

fake. Maybe not to the layman, but to us bods at StormStudios it would have definitely looked unreal and we

always liked to do things as real as possible whenever or wherever we could.

The little figure in his basket was included to give a sense of scale and also inject a touch of humour into the

piece as he worked tirelessly to keep the groove as clean and friction free as possible.

I really like the overall graphic feel of this image, the straight converging lines and the contrasting colours,

really make this wonderful and to me, quite timeless.

We actually won an award in Belgium for this image, which is nice.

pyramid sky and grass groove parts figures groove parts groove parts


FINAL IMAGE, ORIGINAL ROUGHAND AWARD


06 / THE STEVE MILLER BAND / LET YOUR HAIR DOWN / ALBUM COVER / 2010

We at StormStudios always enjoy a good laugh and Storm himself was often fond of silly puns and delighted

in being able to create a visual representation of one and Let Your Hair Down is no exception.

According to Steve Miller, this album was all about having a good time and we all like to ‘let our hair down’

every now and again. This image is both metaphor and not real, because the bald man has no hair!

It is often said that one should never work with animals, they fail to read the script and don’t always performon cue – this hare lived up to that expectation perfectly as she (I think it was a she) continually stood, sat, orlay in the wrong position. The art director was incredibly frustrated at the uncooperative hare and was convincedthe shoot was heading for disaster. I was more concerned about the hare getting stressed, despite assurancesfrom the hare wrangler that she was okay, but I suggested that rather than trying to get her to sit in positionsthat were after all unnatural for a hare, we should simple shoot her in several different positions she would becomfortable in and then I would put them together in trusty Photoshop.

So here we have a real hare, but not real all at the same time.

Being rather silly, this image still makes me smile but it has a surreal edge, which is doubly appealing onceyou get the verbal connection. Letting your hair down is precisely what Steve hoped the music would encourageyou to do.

plate man lady in red hare head and body hare back foot hare front leg and tail


07 / SCRUTINY / FINE ART PRINT / 2011

When Scrutiny was turned down, collectively at StormStudios we were all rather disappointed. We were

convinced that our client, who shall remain nameless, would jump at the idea as it was such an incredibly

strong image and we thought it would go with their powerful sound, but alas we were wrong, so we decided

would do it anyway as we all liked it. It is very much about retro, so the conglomerate machine of enormous,

endless proportions is an exercise in retro. The other side of this image is paranoia – on behalf of men who

claim to be either mystified or frightened by womanhood, this machine probe is intended to help them divine

the truth or uncover the secrets.

The machine was physically built piece by piece and then shot in a west London studio. It was pretty huge,

but we felt that it still wasn’t big enough, so in Photoshop I added various bits and pieces from the shots to my

main comp; doubling up various cogs, wheels and dials, but trying to make them all look different from the

original pieces they were taken from.

It was finally produced as a large fine art print and really is an incredibly, visually striking piece – the cold,

hardness of the machine is contrasted perfectly by the soft femininity of the subject it fearfully scrutinises.

plate girl on table table and spots machine machine machine


P A R T T W O / Addi t ional Images

08 / THE ANSWER / NEW HORIZONALBUM COVER / 2013


09.1 / VITALIC / STAMINA EP COVER / 2012


09.2 / VITALIC / FADE AWAYEP COVER / 2012


09.3 / VITALIC / RAVE AGEALBUM COVER / 2012


10 / THE PLEATHE DREAMER’S STADIUMALBUM COVER / 2011


11 / KORDA MARSHALLNOW WE BREATHE

ALBUM COVER / 2014


12 / VBOOKZWEBSITE PROMO IMAGE / 2014



13 / TIM FREKE / BOOK COVER / 2011

BOOK COVER


14 / GREG FRIEDMAN / CAN’T TALK NOW / ALBUM COVER / 2012

POSTER

15 / HAIR & GLAMOUR / BEFORE & AFTER / 2015


HAIR & GLAMOUR / BEFORE & AFTER


lee baker retoucing portfolio 020116

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