Luke arrived in Sana’a, Yemen in 2011 as an English teacher; and, although revered by his students and colleagues, Luke began to shift gears into photojournalism, bearing witness to the visceral realities – both bleak and inspiring – of the country, as well as the cultural phenomena of the Arab Spring as it swept through the region.

As time unraveled, Luke became a full-time freelance journalist who worked for several Yemeni newspaper outlets throughout Sana’a, including National Yemen and Yemen Times.  In the process, Luke began submitting photo essays to prestigious news organizations, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, BBC and NPR, highlighting cultural, personal and political facets of the country’s people.  Luke spent much of his time in Tent City, Change Square – the protestors’ main area of living and congregating - where he had spent countless hours, days, weeks and months sharing food, plans, conversation and stories.  This was Luke’s home.

Luke was abducted by armed tribesmen on September 17th, 2013, upon leaving a grocery store in the Old City. And for the next one year and three months Luke was in captivity, and mom and I worked with the U.S. government to get him home safely. Although the FBI constantly assured us that bringing Luke home safely was their highest priority, we now consider this anything but true considering all of the information withheld from us throughout this process, including the secrecy of the unannounced raids that placed Luke’s life in imminent danger, and subsequently had him killed.

We hope that this website permits just a bit more of an understanding of who Luke was, and to provide a glimpse into the Yemen he adored. He had such depth, such a profound, warm presence; such an unadulterated taste in hip-hop, reggae, jazz and folk music; a love for foreign films; an eclectic, vast array of books, from Nabakov to Mailer; an appreciation for the small things, and sharing those small things in their implicitly grand nature to others. If he had two dollars in his pocket, on a mission to get some coffee, his pockets would have likely been empty by the time he arrived to the shop, having already given up this invaluable change to someone who would be just as better off with it, if not more so.

To know Luke was to experience Luke, and to experience Luke was to enter into a sphere of cultural, cosmic and personal reflection. If you had the wonderful privilege of knowing Luke, of being his father, his mother, his sister, his brother, his friend, you would be all the better for it; he would summon your inner strengths, and he would challenge you in such loving, comedic, thoughtful, and highly engaging ways.

So, in viewing this site, we hope that, on some level, that Luke has continued to bridge such a crucial gap that one can never truly quantify: a conscious action to experience people and places in unfettered fashion, rendering labels - “us and them” mentalities, manufactured fear - nothing much more but illusory forces that have the potential to blind us, to divide us.

Beloit College Service of Remembrance, December 2014

Mom and I reside in Washington State, our home for the last 24 years (and counting). Lucy, Luke’s sister, Mike, Luke’s father and Penny, Lucy’s mother, live in England, all of whom he loved so much.

We are both grateful to have this outlet, to share such a vital piece of our existence and perceptions and inspiration - Luke. The process of creating it has been arduous, painful, but also satisfying and necessary, and we long to utilize it in ways that help each of us build new and lasting connections.

We aim to continue posting relevant events, stories, updates when we’re able.

Thank you all for being here, and we hope to connect with you soon.