Mark Baker

Mark Baker is the South East Asia photo editor for Associated Press, overseeing photo operations for the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. He began his career in a family-run, bi-weekly community newspaper in Matamata, New Zealand, in the late 1970s. Later he moved to the metropolitan daily the Waikato Times, covering the controversial and often violent Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981. He then moved to Auckland, to work on Truth and later the Auckland Star, before going on to Sydney, Australia, in late 1987. Baker worked freelance for News Ltd publications, with a short period on staff at The Sydney Morning Herald, before joining Reuters news agency in 1989. He first joined AP in 2003, as their chief photographer for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. In 2009, he moved to Malaysia, and on to Jakarta at the end of 2013.

Over the past 25 years, Baker has covered 26 Australian Open tennis championships, three Wimbledon championships, ten Olympic Games (both summer and winter), as well as five world swimming championships, five rugby world cups, two world athletics championships, two soccer world cups, and many other domestic and international sporting events.