Stonehouse student lands dream work placement with legendary photographer

Apr 3 2008 By Carla Callaghan

Eric Stewart, a student photographer will be fulfilling a dream next week as he goes down to London to spend two weeks on work placement with legendary photographer Rankin.

The 34-year-old from Stonehouse gave up his job as a call-centre worker to study photography full time after his evening class tutor seen his potential.

Eric said: “It was more of a hobby, I went to an evening class at Motherwell College and the tutor there, a fellow called Lewis Napier, kind of saw something in what I was dragging out the dark room and he encouraged me to take it a bit more seriously and go fulltime.”

After writing to internationally acclaimed photographer, Rankin, Eric said he was ‘over the moon’ when the photographer agreed to take him on.

Eric said: “They were saying they wanted to see more photographs I’d taken and find more about who I am and what I do, so I sent down some more photographs and then they finally said ‘yea you can come down for a week, we look forward to seeing you’. I was like ‘cor blimey, me?!”.

He added: “How jammy am I? I was absolutely over the moon, I couldn’t believe it, at first I thought it was a joke.

“It’s just a hell of an experience.”
Rankin has photographed a long list of famous faces including Tony Blair, Madonna and supermodel Kate Moss.

Eric explains his love of Rankin’s work: “He is quite mischievous in his photographs, they tend to stand out because there is a little bit of humour or a little bit of an edge to them. He seems to get something out of the model that he is taken the picture of that no one else seems to get.”

Eric continues: “I would like to photograph Alison Goldfrapp, I would photograph her in a room full of puppies and kittens. I think she’s got her own look, she’s definitely got her own kind of style and she likes to be photographed in a certain way, I think she would be a challenge.

Rankin, born in Paisley has become a world-renowned portrait and fashion photographer and also co-founding magazine Dazed and Confused with publisher, Jefferson Hack. He has recently moved into film production, with his latest project “The Lives of the Saints” a gangster film set in London.

Eric adds: “My wee granny always says ‘if you don’t ask, the answer is always no’”.