ABOUT JOHN ATKINS

Founder and Principal of ‘The Poetry of Light’ (est 1998)

John Atkins was born in Essex, England, in 1956, and is now a resident in Ayrshire, Scotland.

At the age of 34, during a mid-life crisis, photography discovered John. Teaching himself how to use a 35mm SLR camera became both therapeutic and rewarding, as he realised both an intuitive ability and aptitude for creative image making.

Only a year after this discovery, fate and serendipity intervened, enabling John to combine his amateur photographic hobby, with his creative writing skills, to become a National Union of Journalists’ registered freelance photojournalist.

However, in 2020 John’s career, like so many other professional freelance photographers, ended overnight during the first legal Covid lockdown, and his business was unable to survive. Adopting the US Marine’s unofficial motto ‘Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome,’ John took a ‘sabbatical’ and went back to full-time education. During this three years’ period, John learnt how to operate a successful business online, and also update his studio photography and digital post-production skills.  

These ‘Covid-combat-survival’ skills not only changed John’s business operating model, but also his modus operandi.  He discovered a niche in the Corporate Press, PR, and Promotional market for creative fine-art-inspired imagery that would enable him to combine the experience of his documentary and reportage photography with his hobby of aerial photography, using a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAV).

Synthesising ‘The Poetry of Light’ now with ‘The Poetry of Flight,’ for fine-art-inspired imagery, together with National Union of Journalists’ membership and accreditation, John can now offer a competitive and comprehensive solution for Corporate Companies who want to stand out from their competitors’ ‘grip-and-grin/terra firma perspective imagery.