Best directors of photography

He continued to work into the new century, almost until his death.

Best directors of photography: Conrad L. Hall. Cinematographer.

Ben Smithard. Dan Mindel. He has been married to Lisa Fallon since 6 June They have four children. He was previously married to Paula Hamilton. Conrad L. He and two classmates formed a production company and sold a project to a local television station. Hall's company branched out into making industrial films and TV commercials. They were hired to shoot location footage for several feature films, including's Disney's The Living Desert In the early s, Hall was hired as a camera assistant on several features and worked his way up to camera operator.

He received his first cinematographer credit in Haris Zambarloukos. Haris Zambarloukos was born on 11 March in Nicosia, Cyprus. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for BelfastCinderella and Death on the Nile Edward Lachman. Phedon Papamichael. Phedon Papamichael, an award winning Cinematographer, was born in Athens, Greece and moved with his family to Germany, where in he completed his education in Fine Arts, in Munich.

Working as a photojournalist brought Phedon to NYC inwhere he started crossing over into cinematography. Following a call from John Cassavetes, his cousin and later collaborator, Phedon moved to Los Angeles. Deciding early on a career as a cinematographer, Nykvist attended a photography school there were no Swedish film schools then and began working at Sandrews studios as a camera assistant inhoping to emulate the great Swedish cameramen Julius Jaenzon, Goran Strindberg and Gunnar Fischer.

He graduated to director of photography on "13 Chairs"helmed the documentary "Reverence for Life"about Albert Schweitzer and even co-directed and co-scripted "Under the Southern Cross" alsobased on an experience his parents had with a witch doctor, before teaming with Bergman himself the son of a Lutheran minister for the first time. The Dictator, Jerry Maguire, Munich.

As the director of photography on many of director Steven Spielberg's films, Janusz Kaminski created some of the most lasting and memorable images in cinema history. Whether filming "Schindler's List" in stark black-and-white, giving the film a cold documentary feel, or using nausea-inducing, hand-held shots while storming the beaches of Normandy in "Saving Private Ryan"Kaminski had the unique gift of maintaining an air of realism, while using a wide array of washed-out color schemes, hyperkinetic movement and other visual trickery to draw the audience into the action.

A naturally gifted cinematographer, Kaminski had an inauspicious start in Hollywood, making B-movies for low-budget impresario Roger Corman, whose production facility was the proving grounds for many later A-list filmmakers. Eventually, with a great deal of resilience and a bit of luck, Kaminski honed his craft to the point where he was noticed by none other than Spielberg.

Following "Schindler's List," a stunning and diverse list of achievements with the director followed, among them "A. A best directors of photography non-Spielberg endeavor, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"earned Kaminski some of the highest accolades of his career, while his reunion with the director on the momentous biopic "Lincoln" arguably surpassed all that had come before.

In the eyes of many, Kaminski had established himself as both the best known and the finest cinematographer of his generation. Hoyte van Hoytema. John Alcott. Alcott died from a heart attack in Cannes, France in July ; he was John Toll. Wind, Legends of the Fall, Iron Man 3. Toll's filmography spans a wide variety of genres, including epic period drama, comedy, science fiction, and contemporary drama.

Outside film, he has shot several commercials, the pilot episode of Emmy Award-winning drama series Breaking Bad, and has served as chief cinematographer on the Netflix original series Sense8 by the Wachowskis, on which he also got executive producing credit in its second season. Through the course of his career, he worked closely with directors Jim Jarmusch, Peter Bogdanovich, Barbet Schroeder, and Lars Von Trier, the latter with whom he pioneered the use of digital cinematography.

His work earned him numerous accolades and admiration from his peers. He died on 3 Julyaged 78, having suffered from vascular dementia for several years. Vilmos Zsigmond. Obsession, Futz, Summer Children. Born June 16, in Szeged, Hungary, he was the son of a famed soccer player and coach, also named Vilmos Szigmond. After earning his master's degree in cinematography from the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest, he served as director of photography for a film studio.

The turmoil of Hungarian Revolution spurred him and fellow student Laszlo Kovacs to record the clash between his countrymen and the Soviet occupying forces; together, they fled to Austria before making their way to the United States. Miller"which earned him praise for his muted palette of color and light to emphasis the film's cold, dreary environment.

Szigmond had begun work on four films at the time of his death in Big Sur, California on January 1, Rodrigo Prieto. Water for Elephants, Lust, Caution. During the best directors of photography decade, Rodrigo Prieto has been one of the more startlingly original voices to emerge in the American film industry. After starting out on a number of Spanish-language shorts and features, the Mexican-born cinematographer broke onto the international scene with 's "Amores Perros," crafting both grittily realistic and dreamlike imagery for three intertwining tales of love and animals.

Their other collaborations included "21 Grams" and "Babel," released in andrespectively, to much critical acclaim. Around this time, Prieto also became acquainted with well-known directors such as Spike Lee, Curtis Hanson, and Ang Lee, although the types of projects varied.

Best directors of photography: Roger Deakins. Cinematographer. Camera and

For Spike Lee and Hanson, he served as cinematographer on "25th Hour" and "8 Mile," both dramas in urban settings. Meanwhile, Ang Lee recruited him to highlight the natural splendor of "Brokeback Mountain," which helped give the two main characters' relationship a layer of joyfulness and innocence. For his work on the film, Prieto garnered his first Academy Award nomination.

He also collaborated with Oliver Stone on the biopic "Alexander," his drama "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," and his documentaries of Fidel Castro and Yassir Arafat, showing himself willing to embrace politically-charged and potentially incendiary material. Jeff Cronenweth. He is the son of Jordan Cronenweth, one of the most influential cinematographers in motion picture history.

Caleb Deschanel. Timeline, Hope Floats, Lanton Mills. Acclaimed as a superior color cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel began his career shooting the stunning John Cassavetes film "A Woman Under the Influence" While working as a director of photography, Deschanel also shot several short films including the prize-winning "Trains"documentaries and TV commercials.

The film is often cited as one of if not THE most beautifully lensed of the 70s; its pictorial beauty greater, perhaps, than the narrative. Deschanel earned back-to-back Oscar nods for his work on Philip Kaufman's paean to the space program, "The Right Stuff" and Barry Levinson's period baseball drama "The Natural" The latter used light as a force, an almost overblown imagery that unsettles the audience, leaving it to question the reality within the narrative yet at the same time, providing a melodic sensibility to baseball, a game to which words have paid homage, but films have rarely been able to put into equally poetic pictures.

Kazuo Miyagawa. Floating Weeds, Tokyo Olympiad, Rashomon. Michael Ballhaus. What Planet Are You From? Michael Ballhaus, A. Haskell Wexler. Canadian Bacon, Matewan, Bound for Glory. Haskell Wexler initiated his feature filmmaking career as a cinematographer in the late s, having previously shot educational and industrial films. The Chicago native had traveled to California to attend Berkeley, but dropped out after one year.

Wexler and his father purchased and refurbished an armory in Des Plaines, turning it into a film studio. The venture was unsuccessful and Wexler set out to learn about film production, beginning as a cameraman and eventually working up to cinematographer. He went on to shoot several features; many, like "The Hoodlum Priest"were noted for their social themes.

Wexler stated that Elia Kazan's "America, America" marked the turning point in his Hollywood career and includes "some of the best photography" that he shot. He went on to shoot the intense, claustrophobic black and white images of Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Wexler was also one of several directors of photography interviewed for the superlative "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography" A passionate liberal, Wexler produced, directed, wrote and photographed one of the most devastating and technically sophisticated anti-establishment films ever made, "Medium Cool" Drawing on the stylistic and theoretical advances made by such vanguard figures as Jean- Luc Godard, and taking its title almost straight from the mouth of media guru Marshall McLuhan, "Medium Cool" was set and filmed during the Chicago Democratic convention.

He's worked numerous times with Ang Lee and Martin Scorsesewith his collaborations with those directors proving to be some of his most successful Brokeback MountainThe Wolf of Wall Streetand The Irishmanto name a few. His work might not be as flashy as someone like Lubezki, but his track best directors of photography is just as strong, and he's undeniably helped craft some beautiful-looking movies.

There are a handful of cinematographers who are best known for their partnership with a single filmmaker, and Wally Pfister is arguably one of them. His most high-profile credits are for Christopher Nolanas he was the cinematographer for all seven Nolan movies made between and in this time, he was also nominated for Best Cinematography for four of themand won for 's Inception.

Those films undeniably have a distinctly sleek look to them, and show how important Pfister was to making the films from that era in Nolan's filmography look so good. Unfortunately, he hasn't been credited as a cinematographer sincebranching out into directing for TV shows and feature films, so time will tell whether he ever returns to the role that got him so much acclaim.

There are few cinematographers whose names are well-known outside dedicated film circles, but Roger Deakins is one of those select few that is a big-name cinematographer. He absolutely deserves his reputationas he's worked in the profession since the s, and has racked up close to credits as of He's done the cinematography for most films by The Coen Brothershas worked on several Denis Villeneuve movies, and is also a favorite of Sam Mendesworking on Skyfall - one of the best-looking James Bond films of all time - and recently winning an Oscar for the breathtaking His body of work is vast and incredibly consistent, proving once-and-for-all that Deakins is easily among the best cinematographers working today.

Best directors of photography: Michael Ballhaus. Cinematographer. Director.

Glancing over his credits shows that Robert Richardson has been a highly sought-after cinematographer since the s. He's mostly worked with groundbreaking American filmmakers like Oliver StoneMartin Scorseseand Quentin Tarantinodoing the cinematography for all the latter's films except Death Proof of the last 20 years. It's perhaps his work on the fantastic-looking Kill Bill that best demonstrates his skill.

Even though his cinematography may not be unique, it is highly effective. It would be fair to say that his future as cinematographer is the brightest among all on this list. Robert Richardson is one of the only three people to have won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography thrice — the other two being the legendary Vittorio Storaro and Emmanuel Lubezki.

Dissect his shots, and you will see there is a lot going on in terms of style. Such is the beauty and brilliance of his cinematography in that film. Doyle has this unique gift of making ordinary look pretty.