Although there are many photographers in this world belonging to different backgrounds and working for various industries – the interesting thing is that each of them is unique in their own way. They bring something new every time and it is surprising to see that there is no end to their creativity.
Born in Lancaster, 1958, David Stewart is a British director and photographer, who utilizes his talents in fine art and advertising. He started off his career by photographing musical bands like The Ramones and The Clash while they were found performing at local places. He also took images of parade on Morecambe Promenade of multicolored characters. He went to Flyde College to learn photography, and then moved to London in 1981.
Stewart worked as an assistant for photographers for a few years and later set up his personal studio. Since then, he has become the ‘most wanted’ photographers in the United Kingdom. He splits his time between commercial commissions and personal assignments. He is known for his humorous and surreal portraits in large format.
Cabbage was his first photographic collection and it also included a short film that was chosen in 1995 for British Academy of Film and Television Arts award. It was a tribute to the maligned vegetable. The photographs are humorous and either the vegetable is used as a prop or a person similar to its shape is portrayed.
Moving on, in 2001, he published Fogeys, portraying old men and aged women, that received a silver medal from New York’s Art Directors Club.
In the year 2008, a work by David Stewart was accepted and acknowledged in 2011 and 2013 as well, for the Royal Academy Summer Show.
In 2009, Thrice Removed, a book by Stewart was released by Browns Editions. The book is an observational study on society, family, relationships and life. The color photos are both emotionally and technically balanced. The closer the viewer looks, the more the pictures reveal. The book comments on and defines the relationships of people with groups and societies.
Stewart has worked with notorious magazines, such as Esquire, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Interview. He has collaborated with agencies like BBDO, Deutsch, Ogilivy, Leo Burnett, and Saatchi, for clients like Nike, American Express, Corona, Coke, and Bank of America.
His early styles of photography have had a great influence on his later photographic approaches. He sees photography as either having a fine art touch or as a contrast the field is for advertisements.
Two of his projects, named Intension and Indecision provided a surreal and stimulating study on the relationship between women and food. He portrays females in unusual eating positions and settings, like outside an elevator or inside the laundry room. The pictures contain only these women and no other person. All the women in this series emphasize their femininity through dresses with frills and they hold food that’s raw and in strange places like a purse with sausage, or a basket of laundry with eel. The entire series is bizarre – raw food, barren settings, bewildered women.
Teenage Pre-occupation was his recent photography venture that shows teenagers and the transformations they are struck with. It was published in 2013. The National Portrait Gallery, London accepted four of the photographs from this series for a portrait prize for three consecutive years – 2010 to 2012.
