Roger Fuller is a new APG Member for 2025. He began his professional life at the age of 16 in 1961, starting as a junior commercial artist in a London-based commercial art studio, where he learned the fundamentals of his craft.
The studio comprised both an art department and a photographic studio. One of the photographers there was a young man named Dank, originally from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Dank had a striking portfolio of 15 x 20 black and white photographs documenting his overland journey from his grandmother’s thatched hut by the sea, through the deserts of Arabia—complete with camel caravans—culminating in London. Already interested in photography, Roger found Dank’s images deeply inspiring.
Roger’s progression into graphic design was swift, and his career flourished. He was fortunate to work with several top-tier design consultancies and also spent time running his own design business, both independently and in partnership, in addition to various freelance roles. At one point, he even won the Kodak Prize for a calendar that featured images from a special 360º Swiss camera.
Throughout his career, Roger considered himself lucky to have collaborated with some of the best commercial photographers in the industry. Notable among them were Julian Calverley and Vasco Celio in the Algarve, among many others.
Roger’s journey into photography began at the age of 19, when he purchased a Mamiya C330 twin-lens reflex camera, complete with a standard lens set, a 24mm set, and a 180mm set. He attended GLC evening classes to learn darkroom techniques. The Mamiya kit was notably heavy, so when Olympus released the OM-1, Roger was among the first to buy one. The transition from Mamiya’s 120 film—limited to 12 exposures—to 35mm film with 36 exposures felt liberating, though the discipline of shooting with the 120 format had instilled in him a strong foundation in composition.
Roger admired many photographers, with no particular hierarchy: Annie Leibovitz, Bert Hardy, Sebastião Salgado, Ansel Adams, Yousuf Karsh (Karsh of Ottawa), Linda McCartney, Lee Miller, David Bailey, Lord Lichfield, Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Robert Capa, and the photographers of the Magnum agency. However, Don McCullin held the top spot in Roger’s personal pantheon.
Roger often says, with a smile, that he would be a photographer in his next life.
Gallery coming soon.
