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In the Marvel Comics universe, there is an outer space dweller by the name of Uatu the Watcher.

While he is powerful and wise, Uatu's strict code of noninterference forces him to spend most of his time observing lives of the beings that exist on Earth.

In the Greensboro universe, the same could be said of photographer - and comic book fan - Stephen Charles.

"Are you talking about that guy with a giant head who lives on the moon?" Charles asks with a mild laugh. "Hey, I'll accept that."

A resident of the Triad since 1995, Charles often refers to himself as an observer, a fly on the wall and a recorder of visual memories that pass through most people's eyes, never to be remembered again.

"That kind of ties into being a photographer," Charles says, "but I'm the kind of person who takes everything in from the back of the room."

Last month, Charles released "The Gate City," a self-published book of photography, featuring a wide array of pictures Charles snapped in Greensboro. The series of visuals features many well-known city landmarks including the February One statue in front of the Dudley Memorial Building, an iridescent bird's eye view of the downtown skyline at night as well as the now demolished Po mona Cotton Mill. Bursting with texture and emotion, Charles' book would make any local resident proud to live in Greensboro.

"It's big enough and small enough; that's what I like about Greensboro," Charles says.

Some Greensboro residents might consider the city's buildings and landmarks mundane, but with "The Gate City," Charles proves that no one should take the sights of his hometown for granted. With the right vantage point and composition, the buildings and places we see on a regular basis can be preserved forever as a work of art.

"I just like to find different perspective from something you've seen every day." Charles says. "I think it's about capturing the mood. If you can capture what your mind's eye sees, that's the most important thing."

A W eb developer for N.C. A&T , Charles took all of his photos with a Sony DSLR digital camera.

"Sometimes I'll be on my lunch hour, and I'll be itching to take a photo, and I'll just go somewhere and see what I can take a picture of," Charles says.

One of Charles' lunchtime excursions brought him to the historic Po mona Mill off Spring Garden Street. What he didn't know at the time was that the building was less than two weeks away from being demolished. "The Gate City" features two pictures Charles made during this shoot, one of the mill's rusting water tower and another featuring the water tower and the building's chimney, both of which have now been razed .

"I just discovered that area right before I read about its demolition in the newspaper, but I love looking inside old buildings," Charles says. "I went inside, but it looked a little too dangerous to go walking around inside.

"There's a lot of history behind it that I didn't realize."

The photographer readily admits that the success behind most of his pictures had more to do with the fact that he was in the right place at the right time. He says he always carries his camera with him everywhere he goes, a habit that served him well one day as he was on his way home after work. The clouds in the evening sky were lit up like a neon salmon, inspiring Charles to drive his car to the eighth floor of the Elm Street parking deck to capture a panoramic view of downtown, easily one of his most breathtaking photos in "The Gate City."

He wasn't the only one who had this idea.

"It was funny because as I was leaving, somebody was driving up, and got out, and he got his camera and he took a picture also," Charles says. "I think he just had a point-and-shoot camera, but that day was just amazing."

Charles was raised an only child by his grandparents in Saint Martin, part of the Virgin Islands. His grandfather worked for the electric company and his grandmother was an employee at a hotel.

"They were pretty young for grandparents, so it wasn't like it was really a big issue," Charles says.

As a kid, Charles, a self-proclaimed gadget aficionado, was always fascinated with machines and technology that would allow him to record moments in time. After buying a boom-box with a built-in microphone, he looked at visual recording devices like cameras as the next step in his personal evolution.

"In Saint Thomas, a lot of the tourist y areas sold high-end cameras," Charles says. "I had been exposed at looking at all the high-end gadgets at the time, and the camera was just something on my plate that I had wanted to get for a while."

At 17, he bought his first camera, a 1983 Cannon Sure Shot point-and-shoot 35mm with auto-focus. When Charles graduated from high school, he decided to postpone college and join the United States Army.

"I basically joined the army for college tuition because I knew college was expensive, and (I) didn't want my grandparents to have to incur that kind of debt," he said.

The Army trained Charles in Fort Bragg, which is how he eventually fell in love with North Carolina. As a Morse code interceptor, the furthest Charles went overseas was Hawaii, and when his service with the military ended, he decided to return to North Carolina.

"I came back because I knew Fayetteville, it was the one place I knew in the United States," Charles says. "And I got a co-op position with Wachovia in Winston-Salem and they offered me a job and that's how I ended up in the Triad."

Although Charles says he's a self-taught photographer , he did take one photography course in college while majoring in computer science.

"I was pretty good at my compositions, but in the final few weeks of our class, our instructor wanted us to write a story that tied all the photographs together and I thought that that was the stupidest thing," Charles says. "I thought that didn't have anything to do with what we learned, it didn't have anything to do with theory in the class, and I got a D."

Responding to any compliment given to his photos with shy modesty, Charles is the most endearing kind of talented artist -- the type who doesn't seem fully aware of how great his work is. He never self-promotes, nor does he toot his own horn. Praise him for any one of his photos and he'll get a look on his face that says, "Are you talking to the right guy?"

"He shoots because he loves it," says friend Sean Coon, "and he wants to learn, and I don't know if he has a good sense as to how good he is."

Time will tell whether the release of "The Gate City" will help elevate Charles' work from a passion to a full-time profession. Aside from a self-portrait in Vibe magazine, his work has yet to market any of his work to magazines, something he hopes to change. Meanwhile, he has booked his first wedding photo shoot for the next summer.

"Everything is still a passion, and I'm just glad to help," Charles says. "So for me, it's still a learning process. I wouldn't say I'm where I want to be, so that's just part of my path."

Joe Scott is a freelance contributor. Contact him at movieshowjoe@gmail.com.

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