We are always fascinated to learn the various career paths our pupils go on to take. We caught up with Old Viking Marc Rogoff (80E), to find out more about his time at Shiplake and also learn about how he ended up as a fashion, portrait and advertising photographer.
What did you do upon leaving Shiplake?
Upon leaving Shiplake I went to study a Higher National Diploma in Business. After that I left the UK to go back to South Africa where I was born, as jobs were pretty scarce in the UK at that time. I wanted to study Architecture but couldn’t face another seven years of study so ended up studying fashion. Why? I really have no idea - I just knew I wanted to do something creative and fashion was an interest at the time.
How did studying fashion lead to photography?
I was actually in the fashion industry for most of my career - up to the age of 45 or so. I started as a designer and ended up building and developing brands which culminated in a very large project to put clothing into Sainsbury’s supermarket with Jeff Banks. After we sold the business back to Sainsbury's I went on a sabbatical to work out what was next. I realised that I didn't want to go back into the fashion business and found myself on a beach in Thailand wracking my brain as to what else I could do. I looked down at my hands which held one of the first professional digital SLR cameras that I had bought before my trip and thought “I wonder if I can make a living out of this?”.
Having spent most of my life with an interest in photography I realised that the burgeoning move towards digital cameras and my experience with Photoshop through the design industry had equipped me with a unique set of skills that traditional film photographers were only beginning to discover. I decided at that moment that I would give it a go. It was a very late career change. Whilst it was not an easy change, it proves that one can do whatever one sets one’s mind to if there is enough conviction behind it. I quickly discovered that all my fashion industry connections were a liability to my ‘new’ career. Nobody could see me in that new role as a photographer and therefore were sceptical that I had the skills to carry it off. I had to literally start from scratch. It took a good few years of shooting anything and everything that came my way to forge a path as a fashion, portrait and advertising photographer.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to get into the industry?
As far as offering advice is concerned… I think that photography is probably one of the most competitive industries to enter today, particularly in the light of where the advertising industry is going. People are absorbing media on small screens and therefore the requirement for professional high quality imagery is getting more and more limited. Unless you have a complete overriding passion for the craft and are prepared to suffer to build a career in it I would suggest considering something else. There is only a limited amount of space for people at the top of their craft these days and as a result you have to be doing something different to your competition. You have to have a defining “look’ that separates you from the millions of people with a camera. It seems more and more that anyone with a DSLR these days thinks they can be a photographer. Luckily there is still a difference between taking a photo and creating an image, so there is still space for those with creativity, an eye and the technical knowledge to carry it off.
What has been your favourite campaign to work on?
I did a campaign a few years ago for a perfume and cosmetics company called Romilly Wilde which resulted in an award for the main campaign image.
What are your fondest memories of Shiplake College?
My fondest memories of Shiplake were sneaking out of the dorm on those sublime summer evenings and heading down to the river with my friends.
What was youe favourite subject?
My favourite subject was English Literature. It exposed me to books I would never have ordinarily have read and gave me a love of Shakespeare.
Who was your favourite teacher?
I think my favourite teacher was in fact my Housemaster, Hans Wells-Furby - mainly because of his patience with me. I wasn't the best behaved kid... probably one of the naughtier ones in fact! He was a formidable man but somehow I learned to respect despite my natural resistance to authority.
Are you still in touch with any of your former classmates?
I'm still in touch with a few people from Shiplake and in fact connected with Gus Barrios again after about 30 years a couple of years ago. He had barely changed!
If you could give one piece of advice to your schoolboy self what would it be?
I think I lived with a fear that I would not be a success as a schoolboy. A fear of the future which to some degree held me up in my twenties... I would tell myself to live more in the moment and not worry too much about the future. We can only control what is in the here and now - we are not a result of our past and cannot control the future.
What does the future hold for Marc Rogoff?
The future is an unknown to me but I am happy knowing that whatever it holds I will embrace. I read T.S. Eliot’s “The Four Quartets” at Shiplake and this excerpt has stuck with me and is in fact on my website - it says it all:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
More of Marc's work can be viewed on his website https://www.marcrogoff.com/
