As it turns out, long before his camera was focused on the likes of DanielCraig and FrancesMcDormand, Deakins spent time as a local photographer in the southwest of England. The DNA of his new book, Byways (Damiani), tilts to those humble beginnings with 157 black-and-white pictures, including those of kids mesmerized by carnival lights and a fleet-footed farmer chasing his sheep. “I like to observe,” he says, “to exercise my eye.” As a cinematographer, “I’m working to a script as it is envisioned by a director and in collaboration with dozens of other crew members,” Deakins tells Parade. “But my still photographs are far more personal.” And Byways, flecked with humor and loneliness, is personal and nostalgic. The man nominated for 15 Oscars wrote in the book’s introduction about his early days, “My dream was that I might find a career as a photographer.”
