The Man Behind the Camera at Every Eastern Shore Gathering
If you have attended a gallery opening in Fairhope, a fundraiser on the Eastern Shore, or a book signing anywhere between Mobile and Weeks Bay, there is a good chance Stephen Savage took the photograph you later saw online. For more than two decades, the Washington, D.C.-trained photographer has been a quiet fixture of coastal Alabama’s cultural life — shooting events, teaching classes, mentoring young photographers, and making short films that tell the stories of local nonprofits.
“I’ve had an amazing life, and every day is still wonderful,” Savage says. It is a statement that carries weight once you hear the whole arc: from managing commercial buildings in downtown Washington to directing special events at a national museum, from running a working photo lab in Mobile to teaching photography for a quarter century in Fairhope.
From the Capital to the Gulf Coast
Savage is a third-generation Washingtonian who grew up in the District and earned his degree in art history at George Washington University. After college, he managed commercial buildings downtown, including the Atlantic Building at 930 F Street — home to the 9:30 Club, then as now one of the city’s defining music venues. “I was there most every night,” he recalls. He began photographing bands, shooting album covers and promotional shots, and discovered that photography could pay for itself even in the expensive days of film, prints, and developing.
His career in the capital deepened from there. He worked in art museums and became Director of Special Events at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, orchestrating galas attended by senators, celebrities, and business leaders. He also worked with District Curators, a nonprofit producing large artistic events at venues like the Kennedy Center and Warner Theatre, and managed bands — an education in event planning that would shape everything that followed.
In 1989, he met Emily McMillan, a Mobile native. After years of visiting the Gulf Coast, the couple moved to Mobile in 1996, drawn by the lifestyle and the people. “I found the folks and the lifestyle here so interesting, much different than Washington D.C.,” he says. The next year he opened the Savage Photo Lab and Gallery on Old Shell Road in Mobile.
A Gallery, a Classroom, and a Quarter Century of Teaching
Savage Photo Lab and Gallery became a hub for the Mobile photography scene. The gallery mounted a new show every six weeks, and Savage used the space to mentor young photographers through an intern program and workshops. “Photography went from being a hobby to a full-time job,” he says. When the economy dipped after September 2001, he made the difficult decision to close and sell the business — timing it, as it turned out, just before the industry’s wholesale shift to digital.
Teaching filled the years that followed. Savage taught the History of Photography at the University of South Alabama, then spent two decades teaching photography and art history at Spring Hill College, where he also earned a Master of Liberal Arts with a concentration in fine art photography. For 25 years and counting, he has taught a photography class at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, and he co-founded the Eastern Shore Camera Club, which brings together photographers of every skill level for monthly meetings.
Longevity in the classroom, he believes, demands staying current. He has studied with nationally acclaimed photographers including Joyce Tennyson, Keith Carter, and Christopher James — work that gave him, in his words, “the confidence that I could be a success as a photographer.”
Leadership Roles and a Second Career in Film
Savage’s service to the coastal arts community extends well beyond the classroom. He served three years as executive director of the Baldwin Humane Society and a year leading the Center for the Living Arts in Mobile — the institution now known as the Alabama Contemporary Art Center — during its formative period. His editorial and professional photography has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and national and regional magazines, and he was awarded a Visual Arts Fellowship in Photography from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
He has also built a parallel career as a narrative short filmmaker. Four of his films have screened at the Fairhope Film Festival, and he has produced short documentary films for organizations including the South Alabama Land Trust, the Ronald McDonald House of Mobile, and other Gulf Coast nonprofits — work that combines his event instincts, his eye, and his commitment to the community.
These days, event photography remains at the core of his work, supplemented by promotional content for nonprofits and small businesses. He has partnered with St. James Episcopal School on enrollment campaigns and worked with the Hope Community on fundraising for its community garden and workforce mentoring projects. He was on hand at a recent book signing for journalist Howell Raines at a Weeks Bay home, camera in hand, and produced a promo film for author Judy Culbreth’s Bedford Garden Club Originals.
Collaboration as a Philosophy
Ask Savage what drives his portraits and he returns to a single idea. “A portrait is a collaboration between the subject and the artist,” he says. “My goal is to make the best photograph you’ve ever made.” It is a philosophy he extends to every project: he enjoys collaboration, likes working with people, and finds “the outcome is always better than the sum of its parts.”
He is now assembling a retrospective of his work, with an eye toward exhibiting it at the Eastern Shore Art Center and elsewhere in the state. A Fellow in Photography from the Alabama Council on the Arts, he has earned the kind of standing that makes such a show a genuine event for the coastal arts community.
Ask him about the region and his answer comes back to its rituals — crawfish boils, the Lighting of the Trees in Fairhope, the small-town celebrations that fill his frames each week. His only concern, he says, is that rapid growth might cause the coast to forget what made it special in the first place. It is a fitting worry from a man whose life’s work has been making sure the moment gets remembered.