Invented bounce lighting on Aparajito; National Film Award for Best Cinematography 1986; Padma Shri 1986; Eastman Kodak Lifetime Achievement Award 1992
Subrata Mitra (1930–2001) shot Pather Panchali at twenty-one with no prior camera experience and went on to photograph most of Satyajit Ray’s first decade, including Aparajito, Jalsaghar, Apur Sansar, Charulata and Nayak. On Aparajito he devised the bounce-lighting technique that became his signature — stretching white cloth above the set and firing lamps into it to simulate skylight — a method later adopted worldwide.
Pather Panchali (1955) · Aparajito (1956) · Jalsaghar (1958) · Apur Sansar (1959) · Charulata (1964) · Nayak (1966)
No films by Subrata Mitra are catalogued yet. The catalogue is Bengali-language only and grows continually — browse what is here.