‘I can shut the doors, listen to Bob Dylan and work on my pictures’: The Duke of Richmond

When I was 10, my mother arranged for me to have my own darkroom, up in the rafters of Goodwood. After school I’d come home, go straight upstairs and spend the rest of the day there. My grandfather [Freddie March, 9th Duke of Richmond] got me into cars, but he was also a good photographer and took me to Wallace Heaton, a photographic shop in London, to buy equipment.

I had a rotten time at Eton and left early, after which life got remarkably better. I started an eye-opening job making pre-production stills on the film Barry Lyndon for Stanley Kubrick. Afterwards I spent a year photographing in the north of Kenya, and when I came back I worked on editorial shoots and, throughout the 1980s, high-end advertising campaigns. Then, in 1991, I gave it all up and came home to Goodwood, where I started the festivals.

Leaving my career behind was difficult, but with the analogue world collapsing, it was probably the right time. Now, I do my own thing: abstract nature and landscapes, for myself and for exhibitions. My old darkroom in the attic has since become a bathroom, so I’ve turned one of the lobbies into a studio. Here I can shut the doors, listen to Bob Dylan, work on my pictures and forget any worries. I’ll be going through thousands of digital images, which can be a challenge, but it’s a good feeling when the right one is in the can.