stuartwilliams.net

Stuart's 'day job' is as a professional photographer and local historian working for a local archives service in the Midlands of England, in charge of the photographic service and collection.   This includes varied historical work, photographic surveying, reprographics, printing and image restoration, collection administration etc.  The other side of the job is working as a local historian, researching and writing, and advising members of the public on local and family history research.

Stuart is professionally qualified by the City & Guilds of London Institute and the Institute of Incorporated Photographers.

His personal photographic projects have included:

• 'On the Trail of Tolkien' - a unique project to record and re-interpret, digitally, the places which are associated with, influenced and may have inspired the work of author and scholar Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, especially those in Birmingham and the Black Country.  The project incorporates the The Tolkien Trail Survey, providing a record for posterity of these places.  Selected work has been exhibited at Tolkien 2005, the conference at Aston University celebrating the 50th anniversary of 'The Lord of the Rings' and at the annual Tolkien Weekends at Sarehole Mill, Birmingham.  It is planned to use this work as a submission for Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society and for a limited edition book in due course.  Some of this work was exhibited throughout 2007 at Sarehole Mill in 2007.

• 'AFPU in Camera' - Stuart spent 2005 re-enacting a WWII British Army Film & Photographic Unit Sergeant Photographer, as a personal tribute to those particular unsung heroes of the war in the 60th anniversary year of the end of that terrible conflict.  This resulted in a body of work using period cameras, but was successful most notably in the discovery of over 600 'lost' wartime photos by AFPU Cairo Stills Editor  Sgt. Wilf Sims of Walsall, now donated to the Imperial War Museum.