Born in Tokyo in 1950, Herbie Yamaguchi studied economics at university. After graduating, in 1973 he went to London, where he lived for about 10 years. For a time during this period, he was an actor in Tsutomu Yamashita's musical theater troupe Red Buddha.

Directly experiencing the punk movement of those times, he began to record the lively London of the 1970s in photographs. His photographs of London's rock musicians received particular acclaim.

Even after moving back to Japan, he has continued to travel back and forth between Europe and Japan, creating a large body of monochrome works that feature both artists and "ordinary people" and that is notable for its unpretentious and affectionate expressiveness.

Yamaguchi's clean, unaffected works have many fans, and in addition to photo collections and exhibitions, he is also quite popular in wide-ranging activities that transcend the photography genre, including publishing essays and serving as a moderator on the "Music Tide" television program (broadcast every Wednesday 23:00 to 24:00 on the BS-i network).