Stewart capturing beauty underneath the waves
Stewart Sy's love affair with nature and the wild started at a very young age. Growing up in the Philippines, he fondly recalls spending a lot of his free time pouring over the catalogued back issues of National Geographic in the Xavier School library (we were classmates), dreaming of one day visiting all those exotic places and experiencing the grandeur of the wilderness captured by the magnificent NatGeo photographers. After graduating from college (DSLU) in 1989, Stewart migrated to Canada to follow his family. In Vancouver, he discovered a dive shop a few blocks from their house. He signed up for a course, and the rest is history -- he has been diving now for more than 20 years.
Stewart discovered photography pretty much the same way, by accident. People were curious about his new diving hobby and were badgering him about it. So he finally decided to bring a camera with him during his diving expeditions to capture some of the beautiful things he saw underwater. This second hobby also became an obsession. Not only did he become a diving photographer, he liked photography so much that he became a part-time freelance commercial photographer too. Aside from this, he runs two photography related businesses: one that offers professional digital scanning services; and the other, a dealership offering aquatic photographic equipment and accessories.
Stu and I lost contact after we graduated from High School, so I was not aware of his photography until we reconnected in Facebook last year. Stewart would post some of his work once in a while, and I was soon impressed by the consistency of his vision and skill. He has an unmistakable artistic 'eye.' According to him, he drew and doodled a lot when he was younger, but he never formally studied photography or any other art form. Amazing, is the first word that comes to mind, whenever I think of his photographs.
I interviewed Stewart to get a better insight into his photography, his vision and his art:
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