Today we’d like to introduce you to Teferri Stewart.
Teferri, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Florida attending public art school before enrolling into Ringling College of art. I was an illustration major in college and received my BFA in illustration but it was there that I also gained a passion for Design as well as Photography. I relocated to Atlanta in the early 2000s for what I thought would be a quick stop and Atlanta quickly started to feel more like home than a layover.
After a few years in Atlanta freelancing and picking up the odd job or two, I got my first break working with Turner Studios producing several cartoons for Cartoon Networks Adult Swim line up. It was there that I started my career in Television production. I moved from Cartoon to news a few years later after taking a position with CNN where I currently Manage design of dayside programming. After years of working behind a monitor, I decided to jump back into an earlier love and passion of mine photography. It gives me not only the opportunity to move around and be more social but helps me as a designer to sharpen my observation skills.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My path to figuring out life as a creative was typical in the sense that It was constant trial and error. I knew when I was very young that I wanted to pursue life as a creative. This was before there was a segment of society commonly referred to as “Creatives” or “The Creative Class”. That made figuring it out a bit complex, at the time I grew up all the creatives I knew or came across while young were either hobbyist or had their passions dismissed as pipe dreams moving on to more “sensible professions”. So with very few examples of how to pursue a job in the arts I had to take on as many opportunities as possible. From that, I tried to and continue to try to take on a personal philosophy of saying yes to any opportunity presented to me within reason.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
You can find me on Instagram (@teferri), Ello (ello.co/teferri), or at teferri.com. On these platforms, I share my view of the world. I specialize in lifestyle shots of people of color as well as dabbling time to time in street photography around Atlanta. I think Atlanta as a city has an underrepresented visual story that needs to be told.
Contact Info:
- Website: teferri.com
- Instagram: @teferri
Image Credit:
Teferri Stewart
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