MARC BOW PHOTOGRAPHY

My father once told me “a Jack of all trades is a master of none.”

So I gave up on becoming a "fastjet" pilot, a pro golfer and a footballer and focused on my real passion, photography.

I spent the first five years of my career as an assistant photographer to a master of his craft. I learned the important skills of crafting clients' coffees and ordering the crew lunch, processing the film, building light rigs, loading cameras, and running the darkroom. After 5 years as my master's apprentice, he declared I had become a decent photographer in my own right and pushed me out the nest.

With that confidence and his blessing, I began a career in freelance commercial photography, shooting magazines, brochures and advertising campaigns - photographing people, products, sport and cars.

The stills world has been kind & I've been fortunate to have had a career that has taken me on assignments all over the globe, from the frozen continent of Antarctica in the south, to the even more freezing wilderness of the Arctic in the far north of Canada. Chuck in a few deserts, volcanoes, oceans, skies, and studios, and it's been quite a ride behind the camera.

I've photographed events like the Dakar Rally in South America, the World Cup when it was in red-hot Qatar, the Le Mans 24 hour race a few times, as well as round-the-world on The Ocean Race (Volvo Ocean Race), which I've circumnavigated the globe with 5 times.

 

Brands Red Bull, Williams F1, Elle, Marie Claire, Volvo, Porsche and Revlon, amongst many others, have commissioned me to shoot their pictures and personal highlights that can't go without mentioning were photographing Brad Pitt and shooting a portrait with the late “Madiba”, Nelson Mandela.

My late father is no longer here to see where his advice took things, but without it, I'd certainly still be a Jack of all trades, instead of a Jack, hoping to master this one.

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