Alumni profile – David Harry Stewart

I’ve been a professional advertising photographer for the last 35 years, and although I studied Mechanical Engineering at RIT, my education there continues to be the foundation of my career. It was at RIT that I was first introduced to the idea that image making could be a way of life. It was at RIT that I met the first people, students mostly, that were entirely different from me and from the people I had know in my small town life. There is no way I could have directly gone from my small farming town directly to a major urban center. It would have been too much. RIT was perfect in that it had a diverse group of kids, a great program but without the additional pressures of having to adjust to urban living. College is meant to be a transition, and for me RIT worked perfectly.

The idea of a technical education is that the mind is trained to analyze and solve problems. The discipline may change, but the technique of being able to focus on a problem and under pressure find a solution to the problem is a skill set that stays long after the particular area of study is no longer useful. This was the case with me. A great deal of the credit for the long success of my career has been my engineering background. My work life is one constant set of problem solving, usually with a very tight time constraint and with a number of people watching me. These are skills that I learned at RIT.

My advice to students would be to fill your brains with as much as you can. This is the time in your life to expose yourselves to new ideas. Do it with gusto. See movies you have never heard of in languages you don’t know, go to performances that you have no idea what they are, attend lectures by people you have never heard of. Remove judgement of what is good to see, what is pleasant to listen to, who is right and who is wrong. Do it all. As William James wrote “ Begin to be now what you will be hereafter. ” In other words, be curious with a supple mind when you are young and you will bring it with you as you go through life. Technology is changing at an ever accelerating rate, and the supple mind will be key to your success happiness.

I’ve worked for just about every large advertising agency there is, and my images have been in most every magazine there is. My campaigns have made my clients hundreds of millions of dollars. I am a recognized expert at creating seemingly real images that are actually highly produced. I currently live in Los Angeles and work worldwide. I really love my job.

Contact: david@dhstewart.com
Web: www.davidharrystewart.com

http://instagram.com/dhstewart -where I post random images
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/davidharrystewart – where I post new editorial and personal images
Blog: http://blog1.dhstewart.com/ – where I write about stuff.

TEL:917-439-3324
PHOTOGRAPHER / DIRECTOR
LOS ANGELES / NEW YORK
represented by: WEBBER REPRESENTS