I can still recall the thrill of shooting my first film.

Every cinematographer I worked with had his own way of solving problems.

I knew exactly how I wanted it to play, but you are never sure until you watch the projected images reflect off the screen. That's when you know it worked.

But you know you haven't done it all because you know everything keeps evolving and changing; and you know you can evolve with it if you grow and develop as a human being.

There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors... it's an extraordinarily subtle language. Figuring out how to speak that language is a lifetime job.

I want to tell a story and shape it all the way through to the end.

I don't think of myself as a director or writer. I think of myself as a filmmaker.

There are a lot of directors who are knowledgeable about images, and others who aren't.

Billions of people have seen and been influenced by movies in the short history of this industry.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

I suppose I would still be a communicator, maybe a musician.

You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.

Photography is a very important part of my life.

I was very happy sitting alone at a dining room table, writing a script.

My first semester, I got a D in creative writing.

Manipulating shadows and tonality is like writing music or a poem.

Painting and writing are solitary arts.

With today's fast films, you can light the way your eye sees the scene. You can abuse the film and create subtleties in contrast with light and exposure, diffusion and filters. That's what makes it an art.

Contrast is what makes photography interesting.

The closer the source of light is to a subject, the broader the beams are.

It is also difficult to articulate the subtleties in cinema, because there aren't words or metaphors which describe many of the emotions you are attempting to evoke.

You have to understand the nature of light.

Every once in a while, when the audience is expecting to see one thing, you have to show them something else.

But at heart, I am more than a cinematographer.

I saw Tequila Sunrise as a romantic picture with complex, bigger than life characters.

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

The sun is the most parallel light source because it is so far away.

I think one of the reasons people quit is because they're afraid they won't be able to get better and better; that they have to come to a zenith of some kind.

It took a while for me to grasp that my colleagues believe I have made an impact on the history of cinema.

I hope I'm still shooting when I'm 80.

It was 100 feet of 16 mm black-and-white film of a car coming to a stop sign, and driving off. I had to decide how to frame and light it. It was magic. There was a sense of mystery.

Cinematography is infinite in its possibilities... much more so than music or language.

In aptitude tests, I scored highest in music.

That's why I like fast film. It gives you more freedom to light more naturally.

My peers say I have made a difference. That means more to me than winning an Oscar.

It's important to know that if you are dealing with shadows.

I can still recall the thrill of shooting my first film.

Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten.

The audience has to understand that if the film is going to have any meaning for them. If they are going to empathize with the characters, they have to visualize the process of concentration involved in making every move.

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.