ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on fieldwork observations of workshops and interviews conducted at Camerimage International Festival of the Art of Cinematography, held annually in Poland since 1993. Feature films and high-production-value television drama series provide the most developed cinematographic aesthetic experimentation and technical invention in the film and television industries and the arena in which it could be argued the most virtuoso of cinematographers work. Cinematographers' aesthetics of organisation is linked to how they accrue and disseminate knowledge and aspire to an aesthetic praxis beyond their powers of skilled vision. Cinematographers seek collaborators and source crew who can assist them in manifesting their visual strategies. The aesthetic solutions and narratives of working life passed down this way are very important to cinematographers, the vast majority of whom in the contemporary sphere are freelance workers. If cinematography could be described as having a medium it can be principally broken down to three main elements: composition or framing, camera movement and lighting.
