Leon Narbey

Leon Narbey is one of New Zealand's most acclaimed directors of photography. While sharing his colleagues versatility, his best work is distinguished by a certain formal aestheticism which owes much to his art school background.

At Elam Art School, Narbey specialised in sculpture, developing an enduring interest in experimenting with light and form. From experimenting with shadows in the white cube of the art world he then moved to the very different environment of television news. The experience allowed Narbey to hone his technical skills and he began to branch out into independent filmmaking.

In 1979 Narbey travelled to China with director Geoff Steven to shoot two documentaries, Gung Ho:Rewi Alley of China and The Humble Force.

This partnership provided Narbey with his first opportunity to photograph a feature film. Small town tale Skin Deep (1978), directed by Steven, was one of the projects supported by the Interim Film Commission set up in 1977.

Narbey went on to direct the feature films Illustrious Energy (1987) and The Footstep Man (1992), both of which he co-wrote with Martin Edmond. Illustrious Energy provides a poetic evocation of the Chinese settler experience in the Central Otago landscape during the Gold Rush. The film won eight national and two international awards including the Hawaiian International Film Festival Best Film award in 1988.

The ambitious Footstep Man combines a tale involving a sound effects man (Steven Grives)  with French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a character in the film he is working on. Lautrec is played by Michael Hurst, while the object of both Lautrec and the soundman's obsession is portrayed by Hurst's real-life partner Jennifer Ward-Lealand.

Narbey's numerous short film credits include being Director of Photography on Michael Hurst's I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Flying, Snap, Beyond Gravity, The Transformers, Harry Sinclair's Lounge Bar and Brad McGann's Possum. Possum received an Honorary Distinction for Best Cinematography at the 1998 Athens Short Film Festival, and Best Cinematography in a Short Drama at the 1998 NZ Film and TV Awards.

Narbey won  the Best Cinematography Award at the 2000 Nokia NZ Film Awards for Harry Sinclair's The Price of Milk, and in 1994 for the highly stylised Desperate Remedies, which was also selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.

Leon Narbey was Director of Photography on the critically acclaimed Whale Rider, directed by Niki Caro. The film won audience awards at Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Seattle and Maui Film Festivals; the BAFTA best children's film award and the best foreign film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Narbey has lit many documentaries involving the visual arts, including Colin McCahon: I Am, Marti: The Passionate Eye, and The Man in the Hat. He is also director of 1996 TV documentary Visible Evidence, in which a number of New Zealand documentary photographers discuss their work.

Narbey continues to show his versatility: recent projects include Topp Twins doco Untouchable Girls and English period piece Dean Spanley, which won him yet another Film and TV Award.

- Adapted from Duncan Petrie's book, Shot in New Zealand (2007).