Life through the Goodwood supremo’s lens
Charles March, Duke of Richmond, tells Lucinda Everett about his 45-year career as a photographer
While there’s no “typical” career path for a duke-in-waiting, there are a few things you don’t expect. Leaving Eton at 16, for example. Or secretly living in London while you’re supposed to be at college, and landing a job on set with Stanley Kubrick.
But Charles March, now the 11th Duke of Richmond and owner of the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, has always been driven by an obsession – “a kind of illness”, he calls it – with photography. Highlights of his 45-year career will be exhibited in Rome this month, including a new series taken on the remote island of Jura.
March first caught the photography bug aged 10, but developed a fullblown affliction as a teenager at Eton. He practised all he could, but it was an uphill struggle. “I wasn’t loving Eton and they weren’t loving me much either. There was no real enthusiasm about photography [there] and I was passionate to do it.”
Arguably, his real education began as a stills photographer on Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon. Kubrick spent every evening going through March’s pictures. “He was a very good photographer and would tell me what not to do and what to try instead,” says March. “And he was very forgiving – as long as I didn’t get it wrong twice. But
my biggest lesson was that there was no compromise on anything.”
Next, March worked on a health education programme in Africa, where, alongside his day job, he photographed locals, kick-starting three years as a reportage photographer for the likes of Tatler and Italian Vogue, before he moved into advertising. For the next 11 years, he took still-life and special effects photographs for brands like Levi’s, Glenfiddich, De Beers, and Marks & Spencer.
“What I loved about that time was the magic of photography,” he says. “There were lots of tricks with mirrors and sets. Things would take weeks to do and lots could go wrong, which was exciting. Now, with CGI, you can do anything. The magic has gone.”
In 1991, duty called March back to Goodwood and he took over the estate, a move he describes as “a wrench”. He threw himself into the role, though, founding the car-racing festivals that help bring 750,000 visitors to the estate every year. Even so, he couldn’t stop taking pictures, developing a new technique that has defined his style ever since.
By moving the camera around on a slow shutter speed, he creates abstract images full of twisting swirls that could be mistaken for brush strokes. “It’s an impression over a period of time,” explains March. “I’m not trying to take a picture of the place. I’m trying to give an impression of a feeling of where I am. If there’s something I feel is the important bit of the image, I’ll move the camera in a way that enhances that.” Like the horizons in his Seascape series – huge, vivid shots of the Bahamian coastline – which stay pin sharp among blurry, undulating waves. To make them, he moved his camera from left to right: “It was all about being horizontal and looking out thousands of miles over millions of years – those views haven’t changed,” he explains.
Nature has always been central to March’s work, partly because of the “deep and emotional relationship” he feels there is between the camera and nature, but also thanks to his lifestyle.
His first two exhibitions, Nature Translated (2012) and Wood Land (2015), captured the beauty of the family estate and his later work has been completed on business or family trips. The Jura shots, for instance, were taken over six years of holidays.
His process is time-consuming. “I’m shooting thousands of frames to get just one. It’s total hit and miss and the best ones I can’t repeat. I don’t really know quite what I did. It’s just a moment of coming together.”
The biggest challenge? “Going through all the pictures,” says March, who took 40,000 Seascape pictures and selected 22 for Rome. “My wife’s told me never to take a picture of that beach ever again. But I kept thinking I could do it better.”
Back home, he finds it just as hard to resist the pull of his studio. “It’s just down the passage so I’ll slope off for a few minutes to look at something. I work on photography at the weekends, or very late at night.”
March doesn’t have a plan beyond the current pre-exhibition mania – “I just want to get it done and never do it again!” he laughs – but he seems nostalgic for his analogue work.
“Digital is good for what I’m doing now, it’s a very exciting medium, but [my early work] was technical and mechanical and I miss that.”
Whatever he chooses, he won’t be stopping any time soon. “I can’t stop, I don’t know why. I wish I could. Like [I should have] with that bloody beach!”
Photographs 1980-2017 by Charles March runs from tomorrow to June 30 at the Galleria del Cembalo in Rome. galleriadelcembalo.it