My friend Robin Browne, who has died aged 82, was a cinematographer specialising in aerial photography and special effects. His was not a name in lights, but he consistently excelled without the razzmatazz of Hollywood. I doubt there is anyone who has seen one of his films and not marvelled at the skills and dangers involved.
He started out as a clapper boy in the late 1950s, and worked on dozens of distinguished films over the next five decades, as camera assistant, operator and as director of photography leading specialist units. A few titles give a flavour: Battle of Britain (1969); Catch 22 (1970); the television series The Adventures of Black Beauty (1972-74), on which he was camera operator for all 52 episodes; three Bond movies in the 1970s; A Bridge Too Far (1977); Krull (1983); A Passage to India (1984); The Jewel of the Nile (1985); King Kong Lives (1986); Gorillas in the Mist (1988); and Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009).
