Documentary Cinematography

Documentary that earns trust

The best documentary work disappears — you forget there's a camera there at all, and you're just with the subject. My job is to stay close to the truth of a moment while still lighting and framing it like a film, so the finished piece feels honest and looks beautiful.

I've shot documentary and factual content for ARTE TV, AJ+, and brands and filmmakers on subjects spanning wildlife and conservation, sport, culture, and community.

Natosapi — a 55th-anniversary film for Old Sun Community College

A documentary shot over a year for Old Sun Community College on Siksika Nation, told through Elders, founders, leadership, and students. At its heart is a building that has now stood as a college longer than it once operated as a residential school: a place that gives Siksika culture back, in the very place it was once taken away. I directed, shot, and edited the film, including a bilingual Blackfoot-and-English narration with resident Elder Herman Yellow Old Woman.

Grizzly bear research in the Flathead Valley

Every late August, biologist Garth Mowat and his team head into BC's Flathead Valley to dart and collar a handful of female grizzlies, part of a study that has run for more than forty years. I followed them over a couple of field seasons for a three-part series: the capture, what the bears eat, and how the population has recovered.

More Than a Shooter

On a documentary I'm not just behind the camera, I direct and shoot at the same time. That combination is rare, and it's exactly what a lot of producers are looking for: one person holding the whole vision instead of handing it off between two. I've personally shot and conducted hundreds of interviews, so I know how to read a subject, ask the question that prompts the moment we actually need, and gently guide someone who tightens up the second the camera rolls.

Knowing when to step back matters just as much. The best documentary moments happen when people forget the camera is even there, so I direct only as much as a scene needs and let the rest breathe. On a doc set I won't even use the word "director" around the people we're filming, because the whole point is keeping it real. That instinct for when to lead and when to disappear is what separates a shooter from a true Director and DP.