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behind the camera
EYE FOR COMPOSITION
AN INTERVIEW WITH LUKAS STREBEL SCS
W hile interviewing Lukas Strebel in the
bar at BAFTA, he is momentarily dis- tracted by a striking series of portraits of the great and the
good of the British film industry.
This comes as no surprise the more you learn about the Swiss cinematogra-
pher’s career, which began with a left- field career in stills photography. For while he had the ambition for much of his youth to do the job he now does, he found that the Swiss industry offered no easy way in to cinema.
“I always wanted to work in film,” he nods. “In fact, I wanted to direct. But I left school at 16, and went to art school because there was no film school. My father wanted me to learn a trade so I did an apprenticeship as a photographer. That was a four-year course, after which I came to England.
“From 1973 to 1975 I was a photog- raphy teacher at The Bath Academy of
Art. I had a fellowship, taught three days a week and for the rest of the time I could use the facilities and be as creative as I wanted. Then I went to Canada on a scholarship as an artist in residence at the University of Ottawa. When I was 27 I was back in Switzerland, and I worked as a stills photographer, then as a camera assis- tant and gradually worked myself through the business.”
Coming from a stills background has naturally tinged Strebel’s work with the moving image with a certain aesthetic.
“I obviously had a lot of experi- ence with light and images,” he contin- ues, “and that helped me. I think I have an eye for composition. I was never a documentary photographer, I always set things up, and I used artifi- cial light very often, or waited until the mood of the light was right. Framing was very important to me.
“What I love is going with an emo- tion. Even now I work with an operator, we often shoot with two cameras and I
continued on page 22
Photo main: Lukas Strebel SCS; above: a courtroom scene from See No Evil
20 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture