Who's Stu
Stuart's career began with a realisation the he was far better suited to life behind the camera than in front of it, a sentiment that has remained unchallenged.
Leaving school with little more than determination, he was taken on as a member of the lighting crew at London’s Prince Edward Theatre during the run of Evita. That participation led to his next role as lighting board operator on Monty Python’s final feature film, The Meaning of Life, shot at Elstree Studios.
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From there, he joined Link Electronics, operating pioneering video projection systems on BBC programmes such as The Late, Late Breakfast Show and Wogan. By the mid-1980s, Stuart had moved to Starvision, a Chessington-based company that supplied the world’s largest mobile TV screens. One highlight being their use at Queen’s legendary Live Magic concerts at Wembley.
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Teaching himself to shoot and edit video using a basic VHS setup, Stuart transitioned into production. By the decade’s end, he was working as a cameraman and editor at an independent facility in Westminster, covering political news for various ITV regions. The learning curve was steep, but perseverance paid off: within two years, he joined Sky News, taking on frontline assignments including multiple assignments to cover the war in Bosnia and Nelson Mandela’s historic election victory in South Africa.
On returning to the UK, Stuart joined the Associated Press (AP) as one of two Production Directors ahead of its global broadcast launch. In this role, he trained successive waves of journalists to shoot and edit their own news packages.
In 1997, AP reassigned him to frontline reporting in Paris. Just five months later, he was standing at the mouth of the Pont de l'Alma tunnel on the night of Princess Diana’s fatal crash. The following year he covered the FIFA World Cup, and in 1999–2000 he was embedded with CNN in Kosovo, documenting the aftermath of NATO’s bombing campaign.
Stuart later went to sea with the BBC to film Ellen MacArthur crossing the finish line in second place in the Vendée Globe round-the-world yacht race, and subsequently shot for flagship programmes including Newsnight and Panorama.
Over time, his focus shifted increasingly toward news and editorial photography. Represented in the UK by NTI and internationally by World Picture News (New York) and Le Desk (Paris), his photographic work centred on breaking news and major current-affairs stories.
Balancing his time between television and photography, Stuart also lectured at the École Supérieure de Journalisme, in Paris, equipping aspiring creatives with the practical skills needed for modern broadcast journalism.
After nearly two decades in France, Stuart returned to the UK where he continues to work in photography with the same commitment and eye for detail that defined his early career.
