Oscar Marzaroli was born in Castiglione Vera, Italy, in 1933 and came to Scotland with his family at the age of two. He studied at Glasgow School of Art for a short time and was subsequently a photo journalist in Stockholm and London before returning to Glasgow in 1959. Although best known for his acclaimed and evocative photographs of Glasgow in the 1960s, he was also a film cameraman, and directed over 70 films for Ogam Films, a company he founded in 1967, along with three friends. He died in 1988.