StewartDuthie.com showcases landscape, natural history, travel & environmental related images from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia, New Zealand & the Falkland Islands, & a few places in between - as of mid 2008. It focuses on people & faces, culture & lifestyle, & their interaction with the environment. Also included are basic photographic tips for digital photography using D-SLR's, the digital darkroom, & digital workflow.
Travel & photography are inseparable for me (I have spent more than half my working life overseas), & the urge to take more pictures/images/photographs & travel to more places grows greater within me with each year, & with each issue of National Geographic magazine or each programme on Discovery Channel.
The site therefore shares the images captured whilst "exploring" the "world" (i.e. the parts of it I have been lucky enough to live in &/or visit) & shares some of the sights I have witnessed. Ultimately, I travel & take photographs for me - it gives me personal pleasure. But I also hope that you, the "viewer", enjoy the images & are motivated to travel more, experience more & "care" more for "The World About Us".
I hope you enjoy the site.
Development & History of this Site
The major motivation behind developing this site were several fold, & included :
- As a means of showcasing & sharing the images with the widest possible audience.
- In order to share the diversity of life, the beauty, colour & culture contained on the planet.
- With the hope of motivating more people to experience & care for the planet, its diverse environments, peoples & cultures.
- To promote understanding & tolerance amongst all people/races/beliefs.
One "desire" of the photographs in this site - other than simply to share them - is to show that beauty & diversity are everywhere, that “poor” does not necessarily equate to poverty nor unhappiness, & equally that “progress” & “wealth” do not necessarily equate to beauty, happiness nor contentment.
The time scale for site development was long – years long – for several reasons.
The conceptual planning for the site began in early 2004, with detailed planning beginning in December 2004.
Thereafter, preparatory work for the site “in computer” began in February 2005.
During the above process my daughter had been born, & I had bought a small digital camera (a Nikon Coolpix 5200) to capture images & e-mail them to relatives back home. These 2 events – fatherhood, & experiencing the ease of the entire capture/storage/distribution process using the Coolpix – combined with the pain of scanning & the release of the EOS1D Mk II/1Ds Mk II, made me decide that the time had come to go digital.
And so began a period of selling the old items to finance the new, which took several more months.
All of this meant that another learning curve was embarked upon – of learning the ins & outs of digital capture, colour spaces, Photoshop (levels, curves, spot healing tools…), colour management, profiles, & more besides. So, learning – combined with the workload of fatherhood – meant that the web site project lay dormant for another full year.
In April 2006, I returned to the web site, & narrowed down the original transparency images to a short list of around 250. Once this was complete I returned to (re) compiling & editing these web pages. The site was first published on line in the early hours of 14 July 2006.
Two years later, in July 2008 I sat down & did the first major revision of the site, updating the layout, style & content to include both new images, new equipment & new software/techniques - & specifically including my desire to have CSS web pages & "flash" style web galleries.
Image content predominantly features the multitude of diversity that the planet, its many countries, regions, & people are home to - & the great beauty & memorable images therein. The aim is to portray people's lifestyle & the planet as it appeared (to me) at the moment of capture. It may – or may not – accurately portray how things were/are on a higher, more general level at that time, nor how they may be now.
To this end, a photograph, the camera & technique can variously be used to isolate an event/object from its surroundings, & so make something beautiful, unique, obscure or hidden stand out from the "bleakness" of its surroundings - or vice versa. A flower or a child's smiling face can be captured whilst excluding the immediate surroundings - surroundings which may detract from, or totally obscure, their inherent beauty when glimpsed momentarily through the lens. Thereby, the photographer can portray a scene as the photographer wished it to be portrayed – or as he or she “saw” it – which is not necessarily the same “view” the reader/viewer would see had they been in the same place at the same time.
With the advent of the “digital darkroom” any scene or photograph can be transformed - in content, light & colour - almost beyond recognition. None of the photographs in this site have been digitally manipulated or altered past using the various software packages available to recreate – as accurately as possible – the scene as originally envisaged.
Stewart – History & Background
I was born in Scotland in 1964, & was brought up on the Isle of Cumbrae. Starting work at 17 in the Construction Industry - studying Electrical Building Services Installation - my career developed & in 1994 my "international construction career" began. I now works as a senior manager within the industry – predominantly overseas. I am married, with a young (& very adorable) daughter, Niya.
To date I have been fortunate to experience life in more than a dozen countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe & beyond. This has enabled me to not only visit, but to immerse myself in, the lands, their people & cultures – an invaluable bonus in understanding where the true beauty & interest is to be found.
My early interest in photography was kindled when using my father's Olympus Trip. In my mid teens I received a gift of a Yaschica FX-D Quartz with 2 lenses – a 50mm & a 70-210 zoom. By the late 80's numerous Praktica cameras, lenses & a home dark room were procured. Much experimentation with various cameras followed, including a Canon EOS 650 – one of the first AF cameras on the market.
Photographic training has come by way of trial, error & experimentation, together with - in the "early days" - regular copies of the UK 's most popular photographic magazines. In more recent years, a reasonably large - & well read - "library" on various aspects of the photographic art has been accumulated, some for knowledge, some for inspiration, some merely for interest & insight. Current recommended reading is detailed in the Links & Reading section.
On venturing overseas, my fascination with photography has exploded – buoyed by the much broader photographic opportunities available, & an increase in income to fund my passion.
The passion continues...
