A native of Louisville, Kentucky, award-winning cinematographer Bradford Marcel Young moved to Chicago at age 15 to live with his father. There, he received early artistic inspiration from the works of Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Aaron Douglas. Young studied film at Howard University, where he was influenced by Haile Gerima. He has been the director of photography on the feature films White Lies, Black Sheep (2007), Pariah (2011), Middle of Nowhere (2012), Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), Mother of George (2013), A Most Violent Year (2014), Selma (2014), Arrival (2016), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and the Netflix miniseries When They See Us (2019). He has won Cinematography Awards at the Sundance Film Festival twice: in 2011, for his work on Pariah, and in 2013 for his work on both Mother of George and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. In 2017, Young was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Arrival. Young’s collaborations with artist Leslie Hewitt have been exhibited at The Kitchen, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Menil Collection, Des Moines Art Center, the MCA Chicago, and Lofoten International Arts Festival, Norway.
