Skip to main content
  • PDV-Welcome
    Pieter de Vries ACS

    BIOGRAPHY

Pieter de Vries ACS
Director of Photography

Pieter de Vries is one of the leading documentary cinematographers. He is a Sony Imaging Ambassador.

He is an ACS accredited Director of Photography and works in documentary and commercial production on most camera formats. He regularly collaborates with camera manufacturers during the introduction of new camera models.

Based in Australia, he spends much of his time traveling, working on documentary programs for the BBC, NBC and ABC, the National Geographic, Discovery, and History channels in the US, as well as ZDF Germany, Canal Plus France, NHK Japan, and others.

His films have won numerous awards, including several Emmys, and BAFTA’s. Personally, he has been nominated for two Emmys, and won the Australian Cinematographer Society’s top Award, Cinematographer of the Year. He’s also collected six ACS Golden Tripods for Best Cinematography.

Pieter, during a career that spans four decades, has shot in around one hundred and eighty five countries, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, the Galapagos Islands, and in space.

He’s also shot at great depths under the sea, for Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron, for his 3D feature length theatrical documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. Pieter has been recently working on a feature length documentary Shake Sister Shake – the story of the Mississippi Delta music and the women who sing the blues. He has been filming in Chicago, Mississippi and Louisiana.

As a writer on digital video technology, he contributes to publications such as MacWorld, Better Digital Camera, Content & Technology, Australian Cinematographer and a number of other photographic and travel magazines. Pieter also travels the world for luxury cruise lines Silversea, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas as an enrichment speaker and with Aurora Antarctic Expeditions as a photography and cinematography mentor.

His 2023/24 assignments to Tahiti, Noumea, New Zealand, Chicago, Dallas, California, Chicago, Toronto, Bali, Malaysia, Brunei, India, Bhutan, Antarctica, PNG, Las Vegas, Sarawak, Los Angeles, San Francisco, South Georgia, Falkland Islands, Chile, Cape Horn, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, China, Ishigaki, Ryukyu Islands.

He continues to work on cinematography assignments in 2024 and will run camera and lighting training courses.