BIOGRAPHY
Internationally renowned photographer Murray Close began his film career working on Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
With this introduction he quickly made a name for himself and went on to be 'first call' for the world's most influential film-makers, creating some of cinema's most iconic images. During the mid 1970s he expanded his photographic skills to capture some of the great names from the emerging music scene whilst continuing to forge strong links with the film community.
Being Spielberg and Eastwood's photographer in Europe it was clear that new frontiers had to be conquered and he moved from England to Los Angeles in 1991. It was here that he set up his studio and fine tuned his love of portraiture. In 2001 Close felt it was time to up root again and this time he set up his studio in Prague, a city he first visited in 1983. In Prague he also designed and established a film laboratory specializing in providing services to movies shooting on location in central Europe.
An approach from Warner Bros gave him the opportunity to shoot 3 Harry Potter movies and it was in this period that he set up a complete digital 'in house' facility for 'Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire'. He was quick to embrace the new world of digital photography but is quick to add that he often returns to one of his great camera love affairs, the Fuji 680 and the Hasselblad Xpan, both firmly rooted in 'the old school' ways.
His unique vision and sense of timing keep him at the forefront of the film industry to this day. In 2007 he was asked by the Camerimage Film festival in Poland to shoot portraits of the visiting cinematographers and returned to London to open his exhibition of seldom seen art from 'Withnail and I' celebrating the film's 20th Anniversary at the British Film Institute.
This year he is exhibiting at the National Media Museum in Bradford, the Biscuit Factory in Gateshead and in 2009 is showing new portraiture at Messum's Gallery in aid of The Red Cross.