BYWAYS. Photographs by Roger A Deakins

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The book's third - and final - collection is of landscapes photographed all over the world while traveling for his cinematic work, in which that same irony remains evident". So that was interesting going back to those photographs, and then selecting ones that might not be for the archive where they are and they might not be the first choices because they don’t show a village square or they’re little moments, but they are things that I’m attracted to, so it was nice to rediscover those and let them live on the page. A documentarian can approach the work with anger or sarcasm or irony, as well as love or compassion. In the introduction to the book, Deakins says, “I am not a still photographer and I won’t pretend to be one at this stage in my career. You wonder if she’s shocked by the naked lady lying face down in the sun or is she dreaming of being somewhere else other than Western Super Mare.

His myriad professional honors also two Independent Spirit Awards, numerous Critic's awards and the National Board of Review's Career Achievement Award. For almost a century, American Cinematographer has been the magazine of record for motion-picture professionals all over the world. The photos in the book are all in black and white, what was it about shooting in monochrome that you were attracted to? Other Oscar nominations include Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (2013), the Coen brothers’ Fargo (1996), Martin Scorsese’s Kundun (1997), Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (2008), Sam Mendes’s Skyfall (2012), and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (2014). Speaking to Chris Cotonou, Sir Roger Deakins shares his thoughts on the correlation of film and still photography, and selects a few of his favourite images from Byways.

Thoughtful, poetic, and profoundly arresting, they display his distinct enigmatic sensibility, and presented for the most part with little or no information or context (index aside) form a compelling visual soliloquy that conveys with great eloquence, the profound power of the still image.

I take a lot of photographs when I’m shooting movies too, but they are usually location or light references,” he adds. Byways, by Sir Roger A Deakins is a book of black and white still images from the man whose visual imagination and talent have been thrilling us for decades.After graduating from college Deakins spent a year photographing life in rural North Devon, in Southwest England, on a commission for the Beaford Arts Centre; these images are gathered here for the first time and attest to a keenly ironic English sensibility, while also documenting a vanished postwar Britain. Deakins (born 1949), best known for his collaborations with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes and Denis Villeneuve. There’s just something about the simplicity of his paintings and the use of different elements that seem out of place with one another.

It was a matter of circumstance—and free time in his demanding schedule—that led to the publishing of Byways, a monograph that compiles his black and white images from as early as 1971.A feminist classic celebrating life, love and friendship, as Kitty Grady explores, death and stillness are only ever just around the corner. 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.