A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera (the art and science of which is known as cinematography). The title is generally equivalent to director of photography (DP), used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image. The term "cinematographer" has been a point of contention for some time now; some professionals insist that it only applies when the director of photography and camera operator are the same person, although this is far from being uniformly the case. To most, "cinematographer" and "director of photography" are interchangeable terms.

In the English system, the director of photography is called the lighting cameraperson, and has responsibilities that differ from those of the camera operator to the point that the lighting cameraperson is consulted, but has no final say over more purely camera operating-based visual elements such as framing. This system means that the director consults the lighting cameraperson for lighting and filtration and the operator for framing and lens choices. The lighting cameraperson is responsible for lighting the set, and the visual look of the film. The term DP or DOP is now widely used in the UK. "DOP" is used as an acronym to describe the director of photography, in Canada and equally in UK.

Andrew C. Russo (born October 22, 1975) is an American pianist. Russo was born in Syracuse, New York, and studied music in New York City and Europe. He started a nonprofit youth educational foundation in New York at the age of 25 and recorded albums in the 2000s. In 2005, Russo became director of music at Le Moyne College, where works as an artist in residence. He was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the 49th New York State Senate district in the 2010 state election.

Russo was born to a father of the same name who played baseball as a catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. He is a native of Syracuse, New York, and graduated from Fayetteville-Manlius High School in 1993. Russo received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School in New York City and did post-graduate study in France and Germany. He participated in the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in 1998, returned to New York at the age of 25, and created Music Journeys Inc., a nonprofit youth educational foundation. Russo played in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001, and released Voice of the Whale, an album of songs by composer George Crumb, for the British label Black Box Records in 2002.

Christopher Doyle (traditional Chinese: 杜可風; simplified Chinese: 杜可风; pinyin: Dù Kěfēng; born 2 May 1952) is a cinematographer. He has won the AFI Award for cinematography, the Cannes Technical Grand Prize, Golden Osella, the Golden Horse awards (four times), and Hong Kong Film Award (six times). Doyle is an affiliate of the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers.

Doyle was born in Sydney, Australia in 1952. In the late 1970s, he went to Taiwan from Hong Kong and then settled in Taipei. While living in Taipei, he studied Mandarin Chinese at the Taipei Language Institute. He worked as an oil driller in India, a cow herder in Israel, and a doctor of Chinese medicine in Thailand. In 1978, he worked as a photographer for the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Zuni Icosahedron. In 1983, he was a cinematographer for That Day, On the Beach, the feature debut of director Edward Yang. For that film, Doyle won the Best Cinematography Award in the 1983 Asia-Pacific Film Festival.

He has worked with major Chinese directors such as Zhang Yimou, Zhang Yuan and, most notably, Wong Kar-wai, for whom he contributed, wholly or partially, to the cinematography of all his movies from Days of Being Wild through to 2046.

Roger Antony Deakins, ASC, BSC (born 24 May 1949) is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers and Sam Mendes. Deakins is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers. He received the 2011 American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Lifetime Achievement Award.

Deakins was born in Torquay, Devon, England, the son of Josephine (née Messum), an actress, and William Albert Deakins, a builder. He attended Torquay Boys' Grammar School. While growing up in Torquay as a young adolescent, Deakins spent most of his time in and out of school focusing on his primary interest: painting. Several years later, he enrolled in the Bath School of Art and Design (in the city of Bath) where he studied graphic design. While studying in Bath, he discovered his love of still photography. As it turned out, he was a very talented photographer, and this led him to be hired to create a photographic documentary of his hometown, Torquay. About a year or so later, Deakins transferred to the National Film and Television School in England.

Rodrigo Prieto (born November, 1965) is a Mexican cinematographer.

Prieto was born in Mexico City, Mexico. His grandfather was mayor of Mexico City and leader of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, but was later persecuted by the country's ruler because of political differences. The grandfather escaped with his family to Texas and then to Los Angeles. There, Prieto's father would spend most of his childhood. He studied aeronautical engineering in New York, where he met and married Prieto's mother, who was American. Prieto graduated from a small film academy and has become an established cinematographer, working with such big names as Spike Lee (25th Hour) and Curtis Hanson (8 Mile), but his political legacy still has a visible effect on his career. In 2002, he shot Frida, a film about Frida Kahlo, a communist Mexican artist. In 2003, he cooperated with Oliver Stone in two documentary projects: Comandante, about Fidel Castro, and Persona Non Grata, about Yassir Arafat. In 2004, he shot Alexander for Stone. Prieto also worked with Alejandro González Iñárritu on the acclaimed Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel and Biutiful.