Underexposed: The Neglected Art of the Cinematographer

The artistic contribution that Directors of Photography make to the films that they shoot, in narrative mainstream cinema, has been historically ignored in favour of the director-centred auteur theory. In order to address this imbalance a new approach to attributing authorship in film needs to be implemented, which acknowledges co-authorship in collaborative film-making. By taking established auteur methodologies Philip Cowan, himself a practising Director of Photography, analyses the role of cinematographers, and proposes new ways of evaluating their work.