Roger Deakins’ status as perhaps Hollywood’s leading working cinematographer has been established for years. Hailing from England, the veteran lenser has earned five Oscar nominations in his career, for “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Fargo,” “Kundun,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” Other efforts have included “Jarhead,” “The Village,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “Dead Man Walking,” “The Secret Garden” and “Barton Fink,” just to name a few.

His work can be seen on screen this year in three separate efforts: Andrew Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” The Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” and Paul Haggis’ “In the Valley of Elah.” These films have highlighted Deakins’ talents yet again and will most certainly result in his earning more year-end accolades.

I had the opportunity to speak with Deakins on the weekend.

Deakins is in many ways overwhelmed by the amount of success he has had. He says he always loved movies as a kid, but never dreamed he would make it into the industry.

He began in still photography, later turning to documentaries for seven years. Before long, some of the filmmakers he was collaborating with began working on narrative films. One was Michael Radford, who gave Deakins the chance to shoot “Another Time, Another Place,” followed by “1984.” Deakins soon started getting more offers in England and then in America. The rest, as they say, is history, but Deakins notes that the last thing in his mind was getting the opportunities he’s had the last few years.

He has been working with the Coen brothers for many years now, going all the way back to 1991’s “Barton Fink,” for which Deakins won the cinematography award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. They’ve worked together ever since.

“We’re just good friends,” Deakins states frankly. “The longer it’s been going on, the more we trust each other’s instincts and we can try things with a bit more confidence than if I hadn’t known them.”

At the same time, however, he finds every effort on which he embarks with the famous brothers to be a new opportunity. He notes how unique everyone Coen film tends to be from the last and describes “No Country for Old Men” as unlike any film he’d done with them before. Despite some comparisons to “Blood Simple,” he ultimately considers it akin to a late Peckinpah Western. “It’s nostalgic for the past but with a sense of modernity, especially with respect to the modern violence,” he says.

On “No Country for Old Men,” Deakins says that the most challenging sequence was the drug bust, starting at night and becoming full dawn. “It was particularly hard to make transition between night and dawn,” he recalls. “There were few opportunities we had to do that.”

Andrew Dominik, on the other hand, was only shooting his second film ever and his first with Deakins.

“Working with a new director can vary very much,” Deakins says. “Andrew was so passionate. He’d been working on ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ for a long, long time.”

According to Deakins, Dominik had done a massive amount of research and had so many visual ideas and references. “It was a challenge for me living up to expectations of what he wanted and had in his mind’s eye.”

Deakins explicates how every director is very different. Coming from different disciplines and with different ideas of how to realize a film, he says some purely concentrate on scripts and actors and leave the cinematographer to find a way to shoot. But others, like Dominik, have a very visual sense to start with.

“Andrew had a sense of what he wanted to see but didn’t know how to realize these images so I had to translate them into concrete,” Deakins recalls. “He wanted to do a Victorian Western, without a lot of action but about this melancholy feel of the changing West. But everything stems from the script. It’s a kind of joy of my job, being challenged to create a particular look and particular mood.”

Deakins was not expecting to get the chance to shoot “In the Valley of Elah,” only getting the offer after Haggis’s usual lenser wasn’t available. “I loved the script and I’m very much drawn to character-driven scripts,” he says happily. “I was very lucky to get that chance.”

But through all three films, Deakins tried to employ his general approach to the craft. He explains the role of a cinematographer as the “final arbiter of images,” but quickly notes the importance of collaboration in filmmaking. Specifically, Deakins embosses the importance of a location manager in his work.

Given Deakins’ popularity in the industry, it can sometimes be interesting to note that stars like Deakins in the tech ranks don’t achieve much popularity outside of the cinephile circuit. But Deakins is just fine steering clear of too much limelight.

“That’s why I’m behind the camera. Most of my work is creative and atmosphere so the actors can do their job. I like to give them room to do what they do with as little intrusion as possible.”

Deakins considers himself very lucky to have had such great opportunities this year and thinks he was truly stretched, especially on Dominik’s film, where he says he gained the confidence to take certain other risks again in the future.

“Stylistically, these were three incredibly different films,” he says. “That’s why I like getting a new script with a new approach and a totally different atmosphere. Next time, hopefully it will be better.”

“The Motion Picture.” This phrase necessarily implies that the picture is, indeed, moving, and in the absence of this trait the world of cinema would not exist. Yet it does exist due to the motion picture camera. Those who master the trade of camerawork with respect to motion pictures are cinematographers. And the work that these talented individuals do for the quality of films is nothing short of invaluable.

The Academy Award for cinematography is, in my opinion, one of the most impressive Academy Awards an individual can win. So much of a movie is captured in the way it is shot. From lighting to framing to camera positioning to much, much more, mood is set, story is told and the film experience is affected...all due to the camerawork. In all fairness, I am not always thrilled with the winners in the category or even the nominees. “Prettiness” is rewarded a lot here. And while making a beautiful image is certainly an accomplishment, and one that usually makes the film better, I hardly think that it makes the achievement automatically award-worthy.

I would say that cinematography that most adds to the film is ultimately the “best,” and this can be done in many ways. I lso must add that I do admire innovative work that pushes the medium forward (seen in Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on “Children of Men” last year). Also, the category does show a distinct tendency to reward period pieces and films that are Best Picture nominees or, at the very least, contenders. Last year was an extreme oddity as none of the nominees were Best Picture nominees – the only time this has happened since the “black-and-white” and “color” categories were merged. But who knows? Maybe a new trend is emerging.

Another interesting trait about the cinematography category is that, while certain cinematographers certainly have been singled out by their branch relatively frequently, they also tend to spread the wealth around. I noted last year that, with the exception of the late, great Conrad L. Hall, no D.P. (director of photography) has reached a career tally of five nominations in over twenty years! That said, I fully expect this last statistic to change this year in the person of Roger Deakins.

The veteran British D.P. first garnered stateside fame due to his collaborations with the Coen brothers on films like “Barton Fink” and “The Hudsucker Proxy.” He’s since lensed such memorable films as “Dead Man Walking,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “The Hurricane” and “The Secret Garden.” And that’s just mentioning the films for which he hasn’t been nominated. Who can forget his work on “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Fargo,” “Kundun,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There?” He is again collaborating with the Coens this year on festival sensation “No Country for Old Men.”

Many directors and cinematographers have great working relationships. That of Deakins and the Coens is one of the best known and most successful. In “No Country for Old Men,” widely considered a return to form for the brothers, Deakins is has the task of capturing a sparse Texan landscape in what looks to be (quite literally) a dark light. Normally, I would say Deakins working for this duo and filming such atmospheres has all the makings of an assured nomination. However, Deakins is also the man responsible for the photography of Andrew Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”

Even those who do not like Dominik’s film have tended to heap praise upon the camerawork. But will the cinematography branch go for it even though it’s not in such traditional AMPAS fare? Or will they look to the Coens once more? Or can Deakins double dip? Personally, I think he can. Deakins has also lensed Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah,” though I highly doubt he’ll end up with a nomination for it. The work is likely to do no harm with respect to his overall reputation this year, however, especially among his peers.

From where I’m sitting, the biggest obstacle in his race to a long overdue statuette for Deakins is Seamus McGarvey for his shooting of Joe Wright’s “Atonement.” McGarvey, whose work has previously been prominently displayed in films such as Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” and Stephen Daldry’s “The Hours,” has a fantastic opportunity here. The work will have the potential to be intimate yet epic and a particular tracking shot is already the subject of immense praise. I expect this film to be a major player this awards season and I certainly think McGarvey is going to be a major part of that.

Not far behind, I would argue, is Robert Elswit’s work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood.” This seems to be the sort of film the cinematography category loves to embrace. If Anderson and his lenser do as well as they ought to on this effort (they’ve previously worked very well on “Magnolia,” “Boogie Nights” and “Punch-Drunk Love”), I expect to see Elswit back in the race. It’s been just two years since the veteran received his first Oscar nomination for George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Elswit also has “Michael Clayton” this year. I can’t see him pulling off a nod for that, but I see the extra effort as only helping his cause.

Like McGarvey, Dariusz Wolski will be having his best chance to date for a nomination this year. Wolski’s career has been largely commercial in nature, but after memorable work on films such as “Crimson Tide,” “Dark City” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, one could make a very solid case he’s due for his first trip to the Kodak. He turns to Tim Burton this year as the D.P. on “Sweeney Todd.” Musicals tend to have a fair amount of luck in this category, and camerawork will undoubtedly be key to the creation of mood in this latest effort from Burton (as indeed it always seems to be). If the film delivers (and this is a big if in my opinion), expect Wolski to be a major player this year.

Rodrigo Prieto has already garnered great acclaim for his work on Ang Lee’s latest, “Lust, Caution,” winning the award at Venice for Outstanding Technical Achievement. Prieto, like Elswit, received his first Oscar invite two years ago for “Brokeback Mountain,” also directed by Lee. The jury still seems to be out on how much love “Lust, Caution” will receive and/or how if American audiences will embrace it. But if it manages to score anywhere, Prieto’s work would be near the top of the list of potentials.

If we’re looking for pretty landscapes, Marc Forster’s “The Kite Runner” may very well deliver. The film certainly has potential (if totally unproved) to be a major player and cinematographer Roberto Schaefer was able to earn a 2004 BAFTA nod for a previous effort with Forster, “Finding Neverland.” Let’s wait for reception.

Also receiving a BAFTA nod in 2004, but failing to convert it to an Oscar citation, was Eric Gautier for his capturing of South America in “The Motorcycle Diaries.” Generally considered a bigger snubee than Schaefer, Gautier actually won the award at Cannes for his collaboration with Walter Salles. This year, he tries to capture the American western frontier in Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild.” Deemed by many to be Penn’s most accessible film to date, Gautier’s landscapes could very well bring him the attention from AMPAS many people feel he deserved three years ago.

A cinematographer who has been a consistent critical favorite this decade is Harris Savides, who garnering much acclaim for his work on such experimental features as Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth” and Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” and “Gerry.” These are the sorts of films which obviously have a very difficult time getting any sort of traction in the Oscar race, but Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” is his most mainstream effort to date – it could be an opportunity for brooding, gritty, memorable work. Having also lensed “Zodiac” and “Margot at the Wedding” this year, Savides, like Elswit and Deakins, is having a busy 2007. Let’s see what sort of footing Scott’s film can grab.

Other possibilities? “Charlie Wilson’s War” doesn’t seem like a classic cinematography nominee, but it could be a big hit with AMPAS and Stephen Goldblatt is respected. I wouldn’t rule that out.

Phedon Papamichael, meanwhile, is a D.P. who I am convinced is eventually going to be cited in this category. Could “3:10 to Yuma” be the film? I personally loved the western but I don’t know how well it’s going to be remembered come the end of the year.

Remi Adesafarin earned a nod for the first “Elizabeth” nine years ago. His work on the sequel looks impressive, though it’s my suspicion that the film’s overall reception will keep its nomination tally down.

Ed Lachman also got a nomination the last time he collaborated with Todd Haynes (“Far From Heaven”) and his work on “I’m Not There” does seem interesting. But somehow I doubt that the film or the work will be the sort this category tends to embrace.

And then there is the case of Henry Braham, being chosen by Chris Weitz to shoot “The Golden Compass.” This film will undoubtedly look gorgeous. But will that really be due to the camerawork? I’m not so sure. And even if it is, I can’t help but wonder if the cinematography branch will be hesitant to go to a film that is so reliant on CGI to bring its images to the screen.

At the end of the day, this category is one of my favorites. So regardless of what the Academy chooses to reward, here’s hoping to another great year for cinematic imagery.

The essence of cinema is born out of the motion picture camera, and the task of capturing a film’s visual dynamics falls upon the shoulders of the cinematographer. Here is an individual whose artistic choices – from lighting to camera positioning to choice of film stock – influence a film in immeasurable ways. Truly great cinematography also serves the director’s vision. A good relationship between director and cinematographer is integral to a film, making it not surprising that many directors re-team with a particular D.P. (director of photography) after previous successful collaborations (the great Roger Deakins’ relationship with the Coen brothers immediately comes to mind).

The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is always one of the races I look forward the most every year. This is not only because I admire the work so much but also because I am truly happy to see these individuals rewarded, even when personal favorites fail to make the cut. I’ve found it to be a nice touch that the five nominees have been shown on the television screen in the past three years in the same way that the directing and acting nominees are shown together before the envelope is opened.

The cinematographers’ branch is certainly a group within the AMPAS that singles out favorites year after year. Roger Deakins, Caleb Deschanel and Robert Richardson have all accumulated their fifth career nominations this decade, for instance. But paradoxically, they also spread the wealth around a great deal. With the exception of the late, great Conrad L. Hall, there hasn’t been a cinematographer who has reached a career tally of more than five nominations in over 20 years!

While memorable landscapes and gorgeous vistas are certainly commonplace among a typical list of nominees, films with such beautiful scenery on display are certainly not the only sort to find recognition. Just last year, for instance, the branch nominated the creative and intense work of Wally Pfister on “Batman Begins,” as well as Robert Elswit’s moody and intimate lensing of “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

So who should we expect to be seen in contention this year?

Robert Richardson may actually break that elusive six nomination barrier come January. The 20-year veteran, who has won Oscars for his outstanding photography of both Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” will this year be lensing Robert De Niro’s “The Good Shepherd.” Richardson has experienced considerable Oscar love, but he’s also missed for memorable work on “The Horse Whisperer” (for which he was singled out by the American Society of Cinematographers), Best Picture nominee “A Few Good Men,” and visual feast “Kill Bill,” among others.

Tom Stern worked in camera departments for over 20 years before Clint Eastwood adopted him as his cinematographer of choice earlier this decade. Having lensed Best Picture nominees “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby” for Eastwood, he will have his most Oscar-friendly effort to date this year with “Flags of Our Fathers.” Also the D.P. of “Letters from Iwo Jima,” the timing would seem right for Stern’s first nomination should the films live up to their visual potential.

Also seeking a first nomination this year is Tobias Schliessler, working on Bill Condon’s “Dreamgirls.” This is an endeavor that will necessitate exquisite lighting in a variety of musical numbers. The cinematographers also love musicals, having nominated every such film nominated for Best Picture. This is not to mention such mediocre nominated efforts as “A Star in Born” (1976), “The Wiz” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” I’d say Schliessler, despite having had a relatively low profile in the business to date, must be considered in solid shape this year.

Rodrigo Prieto earned his first nomination last year for Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” after an early, blossoming career sporting entries like Julie Taymor’s “Frida,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “21 Grams” and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.” This year, Prieto again collaborates with Iñárritu on “Babel.” Failing to win last year (especially after being considered the frontrunner in the eyes of many) could very well help Prieto in a bid for a second nod.

Also seeking a second nomination after garnering his first just last year is Wally Pfister. His aforementioned nomination for “Batman Begins” remains, in my opinion, one of the coolest Oscar notices in recent years. This year, Pfister will be working for Nolan once more, on the genre magician drama “The Prestige.” This movie may be of a rather commercial nature, but then so was “Begins.” And, once again, his camera work will likely be integral not only in fashioning the mood but also in creating a sensation of effects when such work would often be done with computers these days.

Emmanuel Lubezki is yet another cinematographer who is coming off a nomination in 2005. The only individual cited by the Academy for Terrence Malick’s “The New World,” this was Lubezki’s third nomination after Alfonso Cuarón “A Little Princess” in 1995 and, most notably, Tim Burton’s visually amazing “Sleepy Hollow” in 1999. That all three of these nominations have come for films that were minor Oscar players in their respective years shows that the branch obviously respects Lubezki’s singular style. His latest effort on Cuarón’s “Children of Men” has already been received with much acclaim at Venice where he won the “Outstanding Technical Contribution” Award.

Also in the realm of three-time nominees awaiting a first win would be Michael Ballhaus, who has collaborated with Martin Scorsese for the sixth time this year on “The Departed.” The praise for the technical aspects of this film has been loud and consistent. The work may not exactly be the sort of sweeping vistas that would normally help in a bid for Academy recognition, but time and again we’ve seen examples of this not being a necessity. We’ll see how much traction in this year’s race this film can garner.

The great Vilmos Zsigmond will be attempting a comeback this year after 22 years away from Oscar love. After winning an Oscar for Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in 1977 and, following it up with nominations for Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” and Mark Rydell’s “The River,” the Hungarian cinematographer largely disappeared from the Oscar race. His efforts on 1996’s “The Ghost and the Darkness” ten years ago stirred minor buzz, but beyond that, nothing. Zsigmond’s work on Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia” has been acclaimed as appropriately stylized and utterly gorgeous, though it remains to be seen if the branch will nominate such a critically disdained film. But that didn’t stop “Memoirs of a Geisha” from across-the-board technical praise last year.

Lance Acord has already worked on many films that have experienced Oscar glory in his young career, most notably “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich” for Spike Jonze and “Lost in Translation” for Sofia Coppola. Acord is once again collaborating with Coppola this year on “Marie Antoinette,” and his work has received considerable notice following a world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival. But aside from technical accomplishment, the overall reaction to the film was not particularly kind in Cannes.

Xiaoding Zhao received an Oscar nomination for his first effort as a D.P. on Zhang Yimou’s “House of Flying Daggers” two years ago. This year, he’ll have another Yimou historical action epic to lens in “Curse of the Golden Flower.” Such endeavors are always opportunities for visual splendor, and the cinematography category has certainly proven itself open this decade to foreign-language films, having nominated seven in the past six years.

Eduardo Serra is one of our finest working cinematographers in my humble opinion, with splendid efforts such as “What Dreams May Come,” “The Wings of the Dove” and “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in his repertoire (earning Oscar nods for the latter two). Serra rarely ventures into English language films, but this year he’ll have the opportunity to capture the chaos of war-torn Sierra Leone in Edward Zwick’s “Blood Diamond.” While “The Last Samurai” strangely missed in this category (John Toll is a typical favorite), two previous Zwick efforts – “Legends of the Falls” (also lensed by Toll) and “Glory” (from the legendary Freddie Francis) – have ultimately won here.

And then we come to Dean Semler. The Australian D.P. won an Oscar upon receiving his first nomination for Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves” sixteen years ago. And frankly, he hasn’t really ever been close to contention since. This year may very well provide Semler’s best opportunity to return to the awards scene as Mel Gibson utilizes his talents on “Apocalypto.” No matter what one thinks of Gibson’s storytelling ability, there’s no denying he has tremendous visual flare as a director. His last two films have both earned nominations in this category (with “Braveheart” winning the award) and “Apocalypto” will also surely be epic in scope. Then again, one cannot help but wonder if Gibson’s drunken antics will hurt his film’s chances across the board.

On a final note, it should be mentioned that the cinematography branch occasionally embraces black-and-white efforts. Janusz Kaminski’s work on “Schindler’s List” won the award. Roger Deakins’s noir-rooted atmosphere on “The Man Who Wasn’t There” won the ASC award and was also nominated by the Acdemy. And Robert Elswit’s nostalgic work last year on “Good Night, and Good Luck.” also claimed a spot amongst the final five. All of this may lead many to think that “Peter Andrews” (a.k.a. Steven Soderbergh) could make a run for what appears to be unique, homage-style cinematography in “The Good German.” Many branches, however, have rules against nominating people working under pseudonyms. To boot, the craft categories tend to be protective of their own. So it might be safe to wait that possibility out for the time being.

So that’s an early look at this year’s roster of cinematography contenders. Did I miss anyone? It’s possible. Drop a line if you feel I have. Next week, we take an initial glance at the race for Best Film Editing.