Constance Stuart was born in Cornwall in 1914. When she was a child the family moved to the Transvall, South Africa. Constance returned to England to study at Regent Street Polytechnic School of Photography. After working in studios in Soho and Berkeley Square (1933-35) she returned to South Africa where she attempted record the vanishing ethnic cultures of the Sotho, Swazi, Zulu, Bushmen and the Transkei.

In the Second World War she became a photojournalist covering campaigns in Egypt, Italy and France. After the war Constance married Sterling Larrabee and moved to the United States where she worked for Life Magazine. Some of her photographs appeared in The Family of Man, an exhibition organized by Edward Steichen in 1955.