Leon is a working narrative and documentary DP based in London with 25 credits, including feature films, documentaries, music videos and shorts. He grew up in Vienna surrounded by a family of artists where he learnt the craft of stills photography at a young age, which were the fundamental stepping stones to his career as a cinematographer. To this day, he approaches the moving image with that same precision, detail and authenticity that he learnt from his photography background. - He loves people, original stories and celluloid -
                                                                                                                                                                    My Approach
I see my job as a cinematographer to be completely “invisible”, which might be an odd choice of words considering that it a visual artform. What I mean is that I give the audience the space and freedom to discover and interpret each frame themselves, whilst only subconsciously guiding them through the narrative using a visual language that underlines, yet does not impose the script onto the viewer. I see the audience similarly to children discovering the world for the first time - with my camera work, I take them by the hand, ensuring they are going down the right path whilst still letting them venture in their own terms. How we interpret and experience a film is deeply personal and whilst it is our responsibility to construct a reality, it is equally important for the viewer to find their own meaning within it. I also firmly believe that every reality we construct is unique and can never be replicated, thus every project I take on is a new world with its own characteristics and visual structure.

Empathy and compassion
Films are empathy machines, they allow us to step into someone else’s shoes and provide perspectives that otherwise we could never truly fathom. Thus, I believe a filmmakers greatest strength is empathy and compassion, not just for the subject matter and actors but also for everyone in the crew. Understanding and listening to people creates an environment of trust and safety that is essential to create. And I find my own empathy and compassion to be my greatest strength as a cinematographer - it helps me to understand what the characters are going through in a script, to feel what an actor needs from me to perform and to listen when a crew member tells me how they are doing - all those things shape how I create a world for the script and a set where everyone feels heard and understood.

Drawing from stills photography
My background in stills photography shaped who I am as a cinematographer. It developed my visual eye and showed me how moving the camera even for just a few centimetres can change the entire dynamic and rhythm of a scene. Yet I find photography and the moving image to be two completely different disciplines. Stills are about expressing a story in one singular frame, which involves complexity and layering that might be overwhelming in the moving image, which often thrives in nuanced simplicity. Nonetheless, I tend to draw a lot from photographers such as Alex Webb in how he utilizes colour science and layers subjects in his compositions. Photography also taught me to understand natural light more profoundly as I find it to be the heart and soul of any image, whether moving or still. The way light acts in nature has been programmed into our brains since the day we were born, so it is one of the first things audiences notice and subconsiously evaluate in the world we are creating. This means it is vital to respect the environment the characters are in and to draw from motivated sources of light.

Why cinematography?
There are so many answers to why I decided to become a cinematographer that it is hard to pin them down. I think growing up in a family of artists with a stills photographer dad, documentary filmmaker granddad, stylist grandma and a mom that constantly painted and decorated, gave me an appreciation for art in a very fundamental way. I suppose cinematography is a combination of all of those things - you could argue the highest artform that exists as it incorporates so many different elements and layers. But what really drew me to it is stepping onto a filmset for the first time when I was 16 years old - I had never been somewhere that felt so much like my home and the people there became my family in such a short period of time. So yes, it’s the people - the collaboration - the intimacy - sharing something that comes from deep within yourself - and creating art together. Especially when it came to my directors - having another human being share parts of themselves with you that are so personal and having the privilege to help bring their vision come to life, is one of the most gratifying experiences. You don’t just collaborate, you form a bond and a partnership that goes beyond visualization, where you learn and grow alongside each other.

Working with actors
Acting is about being vulnerable and you can only be truly vulnerable if you feel safe. My relationship to actors is often very intimate by the nature of operating the camera myself. Thus, I see it as my responsibility to create a safe environment for them to thrive in. This is also equally important for my directors to be able to guide the actors without feeling like they need to restrict themselves in any way. I also see the performance as the central piece of any film, so having a close relationship to the actors is vital as every decision I make around composition and light is centred around their performance.  

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