I was trying to amass enough photographs to have that as a book, but then I thought, ‘Well, that’s going to take me a long time because I’m not very quick. On the rare days that he is not in his boat, fishing, while in Devon, he enjoys traveling to various places to augment his growing series of images. I feel like I’m starting from scratch and I can start a new chapter because the ones I’ve taken are in the book, and that’s it. This is the first monograph by the legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins, best known for his collaborations with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes and Denis Villeneuve. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site.

Although photography has remained one of Roger’s few hobbies, more often it is an excuse for him to spend hours just walking, his camera over his shoulder, with no particular purpose but to observe. Not sure why this was shipped with such an obviously visible tear, although it could have happened in transit? Roger Deakins is a master of cinematography for the cinema with two Oscars in his portfolio and 15 nominations. It’s meant as a compliment to both Deakins the photographer and Deakins the cinematographer to say that so many of these images could be mistaken for film stills.When my wife James and I spoke with them they said, ‘If you don’t want to focus on films, that’s fine. Some photos in the book are purely there because they stand in for a part of my life shooting documentaries, like the round-the-world yacht race. Whereas with a movie, there’s a lot of anxiety because you have to give something—you have to stick to a shooting schedule and cope with situations that you might not be prepared for. Another of Deakins’ favourite photographs from his collection is one he captured of children emerging from a ghost train at Barnstaple fair in 1970.

Spanning five decades, the hardcover curated by Deakins and Damiani books is a snapshot of single frames from the beaches and coasts of England to field shots in Germany while on set. Nominated for an Oscar 15 times, he has won the award twice for the films Blade Runner 2049 and 1917. After graduating from college, Roger spent a year photographing life in rural North Devon on a commission for the Beaford Arts Centre; these images attest to a keenly ironic English sensibility, and also serve as a record of a time and place of vanished post-war Britain. So, I thought instead of creating a book of exclusively seaside photographs, why not include images from other places?This is the work of an artist picking up a slightly different camera and working in a slightly different genre. Nonetheless, he says, “Although photography has remained one of my few hobbies, more often is an excuse to spend many hours just walking, by camera over my shoulder and with no particular purpose but to observe… After we had wrapped our shooting day on Sicario in New Mexico, I would often spend the last of the light looking for another shot, but this time with my still camera.