About MeMy name is Luke Yates and I am a freelance photographer, based in the South East of the UK.I specialise in rock photography, and as you will see from the galleries on this site, I have previously photographed stars from several major bands. My style has been inspired by photographers such as Michael Putland, Mick Rock, and Gered Mankovitz.' I also love taking portraits, landscapes and fine art photos though - in fact I love all sorts of photography, something I hope you will see as you look through my galleries. I am available for commission work, and some of the images you see on this website are available for sale. I hope you enjoy my photography, and if there's anything I can do to help you further, please don't hesitate to contact me. When I was 8 years old I was given a camera. This coincided with a holiday to Devon I took with my aunt, uncle and nan. I was spellbound by the camera, I couldn't put it down and set about taking photos of every single thing I saw (my poor uncle spent a fortune on film!) . Some of them were actually quite good! As a result I can recall that one holiday with perfect clarity - even tho I had dozens of other holiday as a kid, and can remember very little about them, if anything. Recently I experienced the joy of watching my daughter (aged just 4!) do the very same thing on a trip to Cornwall - I lent her my compact digital camera, and she proceeded to take hundreds of photos. Photos of flowers, the pavement, some dirt... everything was new and exciting when seen through a lens. She was so excited by this new discovery, that she had vivid dreams about taking photos that night, and woke us all up sleep talking about "zooming" and "clicking the button"... The camera has since gotten lost (I'm not pointing any fingers here!) but I would gladly trade it for the experience it gave my daughter, and for the joy it gave me perhaps seeing her take her bold first steps into a wonderful new world. Who knows - one day she might be a famous photographer! There is something magical and captivating about photography - not only does it allow you to document your memories, it forces you to see things instead of just looking at them - the result being you notice a lot more and remember it a lot better (with or without the photograph to refer to) I had a very old photo shown to me by a mate a short while ago of me standing in front of a fire engine - aged 10 - pulling a ridiculous face. As soon as I saw that image - I could recall in detail the event in question (a friend setting fire to his bedroom with matches!) - it was as if I had been transported back to that time and all the sights, sounds, smells and feelings were there again. For me, the power of photography lies in its ability to allow us to notice things in the first place we would otherwise miss, and then recall them at a future point in absolute precise detail, including things not seen in the photo itself. It's why I carry a camera everywhere I go these days, just in case... One day I imagine, when I've long-since shuffled off to the next world, my kids/grandkids/etc will sit, sifting through thousands of photographs their dad took, and I hope they will not only remember stuff about me - they will discover new things about me, about the world I lived in, and also about themselves. Maybe they found this book in the loft - if so - I would say to them - thank you for your patience - for allowing me to plague you with my camera and take those thousands of photos of you because through that you brought something to life in me that made a huge difference to how I saw the world around me. It started with Jack and Emma - and the discovery through them that life never ceases to be full of newness and wonder. I believe that there is beauty and joy to be found in this world, however bleak things seem at times. A camera is a pretty good way to hold onto that. Luke |