Roger Deakins, the revered British cinematographer with 15 Academy Award nominations and two wins, announced via Instagram that he will soon release his first book of still photographs. Byways will be available in the U.K. in August and in the United States this coming fall.
“It’s something he’s always wanted to do,” the Team Deakins social media account wrote, “and we finally got around to setting it up!” The book will feature images that Deakins has rarely shared with others and which span 50 years, according to the announcement.
A longer description on Deakins’s website says the earliest images will be from his time documenting rural life in North Devon, England. Others in the book are from trips with his wife, former script supervisor and current collaborator James Deakins, to New Zealand and Australia, plus images from filming locations such as Berlin, Budapest, and New Mexico.
Deakins, 72, has had a long working relationship with Joel and Ethan Coen and has been their director of photography on 12 films, including the icy Fargo, the black-and-white The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Oscar-winning best picture, No Country For Old Men.
His first Oscar win, after 13 nominations and losses, was for Blade Runner 2049 and his second was for 1917. He did not win for No Country For Old Men in 2007, perhaps because he competed against himself that year with Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. While not the biggest box office hit of Deakins’s career, the use of vignetting and unusual light sourcing in Jesse James gave the film a warm reception among cinematography enthusiasts.
His early work includes shooting Michael Radford’s dystopian vision of Ingsoc in 1984, Mountains on the Moon, and the punk rock biopic, Sid and Nancy.
He has also worked with Martin Scorsese (Kundun), Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden), M. Night Shyamalan (The Village), Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), John Sayles (Passion Fish), Sam Mendes (Skyfall and 1917), and Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049).
His next announced film will see him working again with Sam Mendes. Empire of Light is set in a British coastal town in the 1980s and stars Olivia Coleman.
— An Exclusive Deep Dive Into Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back
— Joseph Fiennes on His Handmaid’s Tale Fate
— The 10 Best Movies of 2021 (So Far)
— Jane Levy on the Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Cancellation
— Is Luca Pixar’s First Gay Movie?
— How Physical Got Under Rose Byrne’s Skin
— What Is Bo Burnham’s Inside Really Trying to Say?
— Simu Liu Is Ready to Take On Marvel
— From the Archive: Jackie and Joan Collins, Queens of the Road
— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of “Awards Insider.”