by Wareez Odunayo

Today, Google celebrates one of the most respected early-era cinematographers, James Wong Howe who pioneered the use of wide-angle lenses, low key lighting and accidentally discovered how to use dark backdrops to create colour nuances in black-and-white film by rolling out a monochrome Doodle to commemorate the late cinematographer on what would have been his 118th birthday.

He was a Chinese-American cinematographer, born in Wong Tung Jim in Taishan, Canton Province, China in 1899 and later immigrated to the US when he was 5-year-old and grew up in Washington State. He boxed professionally in his youthful age, worked odd jobs and finally started in the industry by delivering films and picking up scraps from a studio’s cutting room floor.

Throughout his career as cinematographer, he used lighting, framing, and minimal camera movement to express emotion. He met his novelist wife, Sanora Babb, before World War II and they both traveled to Paris in 1937 to marry, but their marriage was not recognized by California until 1948, after the law banning racial intermarriage was abolished. Due to the ban, Howe’s studio contract “morals clause” stopped him from publicly acknowledging their marriage. They would not engage in sexual intercourse due to his traditional Chinese views, so they lived in separate apartments in the same building. He became a US citizen only after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act; due to anti-miscegenation laws.

During the course of his long career behind the camera, Howe received a total of ten Oscar nominations for best cinematography, winning twice in 1955 and 1963, which makes him the most celebrated cinematographers of his time. He died at the age of 76 in 1976.

Here’s what you need to know about James Wong Howe:

• As a photographer and cinematographer, he made his name in Hollywood by shooting the stars of the silent movie era.
• His techniques and innovations shaped the Hollywood film-making history.
• He became interested in photography from an early age, but got a job in the film industry through a fortuitous set of events which read like a movie plot in themselves.
• Howe moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in hopes of attending aviation school but ran out of money and went south to Los Angeles.
• Howe took several odd jobs, including work as a commercial photographer’s delivery boy and as a busboy at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
• He worked on 130 films before his death in 1976.
• The actresses liked him because he flattered their features with just light alone.
• Howe was the pioneer of dramatic lighting, creating the high contrast, deep-shadowed images that came to define film noir.

Tolu

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