I find beauty in imperfection.

For me, I just like new challenges.

I love the team aspect of filmmaking.

A period film is a gift for a cinematographer.

Success doesn't come overnight, especially for women.

I didn't want 'Mudbound' to feel stylized in any way.

If there's anything consistent about my work, it's not flat.

Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.

I believe in naturalistic lighting, which isn't to say natural light.

We really owe it to our world to infuse our entertainment with messaging.

I think lighting is a reflection of what is at stake emotionally in a movie.

The cinematographer's basically translating the director's vision into imagery.

I'll never know what happens behind closed doors or why I don't get hired for things.

I've had something like seven films at Sundance, one of which won the Grand Jury Prize.

Lighting practically whenever I can when shooting period really helps with authenticity.

I might be one of the very few people in this industry who doesn't have a 'me too' story.

Surfing is incredible. It's both meditative and physical. I think it was my way into California.

Photos have the real task of bringing exposure to places that we otherwise don't have much awareness of.

When you're so used to operating the camera, it's an extension of your eye and your heart and your head.

I love faces that have freckles. I love faces that have wrinkles. For me, beauty is naturalism, I guess.

It's hard to go back to shooting contemporary apartment interiors after you shoot something like 'Mudbound.'

As artists, we can't help but infuse our art with our own experience, so your experience becomes informative.

It's always a challenge to shoot a period film and not have it look like you hit the tea stain button in post.

Life is unpredictable, and I feel, to some extent, lighting and cinematography should be a reflection of that.

Authenticity, to me, is something that you feel, and if it doesn't feel authentic, you pick up on it right away.

I really do believe that the experience of having a child is going to actually make me a much better cinematographer.

The biggest difference for me was that I operated almost every frame on 'Mudbound,' and I didn't operate on 'Black Panther.'

Having a family is a compromise on some level, but it's so incredibly worth it. It actually informs the work that I do as a DP.

I came up in photography, and Dust Bowl-era photography is a lot of the reason that I got behind the camera in the first place.

I think there's this assumption that everybody would rather be a director, and I don't know that that's the case for me, so we'll see.

Sometimes it just takes a little longer to get to your destination, but if you make sure to enjoy the journey, eventually you will get there.

I shot 'Fruitvale Station' on super-16, and then I shot a movie called 'The Harvest' on 35mm, and then I shot 'Little Accidents' on 2-perf 35.

Cinematography speaks to everything that women do inherently well: It's multitasking, it's empathy, and it's channeling visuals into human emotion.

To me, as an audience member, movies always come to a screeching halt when they get to their action scenes. They always feel like they drag on to me.

You just sort of get used to being one of the only women on set, so it's really refreshing to start to enter a time when that's not the case anymore.

I lived within walking distance of Harvard Square, and that's where I discovered my love of cinema. I saw a lot of foreign and independent films there.

I pour my blood, sweat, and tears into a movie. What I always look for is a message and a social consciousness: a relevance to what's happening in our world.

I don't love cinematography that's very flashy because I find that it keeps the audience from becoming a part of the film; it becomes sort of self-reflective.

My lighting tends to use contrast as a reflection of the stakes in the scene. The higher the stakes, the more I feel I can get away with an exaggerated contrast.

You can only shoot small movies and documentaries for so long if you want to have a family that you support; eventually, you need to get let into the big leagues.

I was probably five when I first picked up a camera. My mom had an Olympus OM-10 that she carried around to document our family photos. And I just always loved it.

Photography was a way for me to freeze time and to capture the moments that were happy and healthy. I saw a photo as a way to go back to a memory if I ever needed to.

The best kind of entertainment is the kind that also makes you question something or think outside the box or live another life. Those are the stories that I'm drawn to.

My experience - I'll never know what happens behind closed doors or why I don't get hired for something, but I've never had an experience that made me feel any less than.

The focus has to be about making good work. I don't ever want to be hired for a job because I'm a woman. And I don't ever want to be recognized for a job because I'm a woman.

I think Marvel's incredibly supportive of young auteurs and really let them do their thing and support their vision. They give you a sandbox to play in, but it's a pretty massive one.

Documentaries are inherently instinctual; you're constantly moment to moment, determining what the best place for the camera is to tell the story, usually in service of natural lighting.

For me, it's always been about the work - it wasn't about, 'Let's go break some ceilings.' I just wanted to tell an important story and do the best work I can. Everything else is secondary.

Usually, if you notice good cinematography, then the cinematographer's failing. I try to make light feel like it's always motivated and natural in some way and hope that the lighting goes unnoticed.

I gravitate much more toward realism, realism in the work that I do, but magical realism got me hooked on film. I think it was my first time realizing that there was something besides popcorn movies.

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