Not Your Typical Creator - My Story

If you’d told me years ago that I’d become a photographer, I would have laughed. Hard. Photography? That was my brother’s thing. Not mine. I had my sights set on two paths—becoming a sound engineer or joining the Army. In the end, I chose the Army.

Your body is only young once, and university could wait. So, I enlisted as a rifleman and was posted to the 1st Royal Australian Regiment in Townsville. I spent four intense, unforgettable years in the infantry, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2015.

I loved my time in the Army, but after a while, I knew I had gotten everything I could from it. It was time for a new chapter. What that chapter would be, though—I had no idea

Photography still wasn’t on my radar. In fact, I thought it was kind of pointless. But when I left the Army and went backpacking across Europe, something changed. I couldn’t stand in front of these incredible landscapes and not capture them. The problem? I didn’t want to drop cash on a camera. So, I pulled out my iPhone and thought, ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Within a week, I was hooked. That was my lightbulb moment—this was what I had been searching for all along.

When I got back to Mackay, I took a job as a machinery operator at the coal port, but my mind was elsewhere. I launched my first photography business, shooting boudoir, and I loved every second of it. Then, an opportunity knocked—my company offered to send me to Brisbane to learn a new skill. I thought, ‘Wait… you’ll pay for me to move to Brisbane? To a bigger city with more opportunities for photography?’ It was a no-brainer. I packed up and went.

At first, I planned to keep growing my boudoir business, but I hit a creative wall. I felt stuck. I didn’t know what I wanted to shoot anymore. Then, in 2023, I discovered commercial photography—and everything clicked. This was it. This was my thing. I threw myself into building my portfolio, refining my bold, raw, minimal style, and capturing people in a way that felt real and powerful.

But you can’t stand on the edge forever. At the end of 2023, I took the plunge and went full-time with photography. Since then, it’s been a wild ride—some days, I feel like I want to run through walls, and other days, it feels like I’m free-falling without a parachute. But that’s the price of chasing a dream, right? And honestly—I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Now, I get to do what I love every single day. I’ve had the chance to work with some incredible people, both in the commercial world and the personal branding, working with professionals and creatives to develop their image to stand out online.

If we have had the the chance to cross paths, thank you for being part of my journey and I look forward to creating together in the future. If we haven’t - hey I’m Luke, lets make some dope work together!