C.M. Stewart - Photography - Biography

I'm far from average or text-book. I was born in Walla Walla, Washington, grew up in the suburbs of Seattle - moving quite frequently due to my family's serious instability financially and emotionally. I can't really tell you how it all started. How I found myself behind the camera is somewhat of a blackened mystery to me, as a result of my brain's choice to block out nearly the entirety of my child hood.

What I do know, that is still true today, is that I look at the world in an objective, creative way. Much like the lens of a camera, I truncate that which I prefer to finish with my imagination, focus in on the parts of the world that speak to me. I feel inclined to capture the beauty, and the destruction of the world. Anything that seems interesting and worth saving. Any story worth telling.

The first camera I really remember taking great photographs with was a 1985 Pentax P3. I went all out and spent $120 on the best used lens I could get at my local camera shop, and I felt like I could capture the whole world in my little camera. I learned photograph composition and how to properly expose and develop photographs in the darkroom. I used to use tools that I knew how to use in new ways, to enhance my art and really get my feelings expressed through my art work. I loved painting on the developing chemicals before putting it in the stop bath. The photograph wasn't the only thing artistic, I learned to use my other artistic flairs to complete a piece.

After I completed high school, I was fairly lost. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type I at 17, and the next few years were fairly rocky. I went on a rollercoaster ride trying to find myself, find balance and to find happiness. I never felt like I was at ease until May of 2006, when I fell in love for the first time and was jet-set into yet another whirlwind of battling for balance and happiness. That love taught me so much, and gave me the best memory I could have ever made - my daughter.

She is so adorable, and made me want to get back behind the camera. I bought a Nikon D40 at the same little place I purchased my Pentax from all those years ago. I still have the Pentax, and it's being held together by duct tape. I wanted to stick with Pentax, but Nikon's DSLR just overshadowed the Pentax, so I sprung for the Nikon. I started primarily taking photographs of her - she had so much innocense and beauty. I wanted to preserve her on paper, because I knew she would grow fast, and start becoming herself. Slowly, I started to look at the world as I always had before I fell into the haze.

My first return to the lens, other than shooting my daughter and some friends, was during my lunch hours at work on Pike Place. I find people so fascinating, like a movie with entire subplots, and subplots to those plots. Opinions, realities, delusions, I just cannot help but wonder what goes on beyond what I see of people. We learn of truncating photos in order to use our own imagination to complete a story in photograph composition, but I take that meaning far beyond the literal sense. Every photograph is truncated to some extent. Only so much of the story can be told, and should be, so we can get involved and finish the story ourselves.

Someday I want to help make a difference in the world. When I was a child, I didn't believe that anything was wrong in the world. Before I loved, I thought love was a never-ending bliss - and that I would never be hurt. But the truth is that there is pain and suffering, and it takes strong leadership to expose it and voice the urgency for the people of this world to form a linked chain and start to build up, instead of continuing to tear down.

It took me five years to realize how I could passionately make a difference, and I sincerely hope the be able to do so.

I am never satisfied with my work, and am continually learning. I hope to remain this way forever.

 

- C.M. Stewart, 2008.