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Peter Sinclair was an award winning cinematographer who was renowned for his great music videos for the pop and rock icons of the 80s and 90s.
He studied at the London School of Film Technique in 1966 having been inspired by working in a cutting room in his gap year. There he was tutored by Ian Wilson BSC who inspired him with his lectures on cinematography and who he later, in 1981, operated for on ‘ The Flame trees of Thika’ starring Hailey Mills. His first big film break was operating for Norman Langley BSC on "Oliver Twist" starring George C Scott.
After which, with his dear friend and mentor Peter Jessop BSC, he operated on some six films, mainly horror, the majority directed by Peter Walker but also ‘The Monster Club’ starring Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee directed by Roy Ward Baker.
He became a Director of Photography in 1976 and completed three films for the director Stanley Long, ‘The Adventures of... series’.
The bulk of his celebrated career was dedicated to both shooting and directing music videos for the greatest artists of the 1980s and 90s.
With the arrival of MTV, he started filming music videos for both Limelight Productions and Medialab. Over the next decade he filmed over 200 acts including -
Madonna, Prince, Dire Straits, Queen, The Police, Elton John, Peter Gabriel, Kylie Minogue and many more.
He received a AVA nomination in America for Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ and an IMV award for UltraVox"s "Love’s great Adventure" in the UK. In 1995 he was awarded the Cable Ace Award for Best Photography on a long form film for "Peter Gabriel’s Secret World’. A particular highlight was photographing ‘Sign of the times’ for Prince in 1988 a long form cinema film shot in Europe and USA.
Another memorable occasion was as lighting Designer on "Pavarotti in Hyde Park" in 1991. With a celebrity audience including Prince Charles and Princess Diana a security alert was triggered hence the arrival of the bomb squad with sniffer dogs to uncover a rigger’s sandwiches under the stage. By now the glorious summer weather had turned into the greatest summer rainstorm which flooded the lighting racks under the stage as they were about to go live to 27 countries - a night to remember.
In the 90s he returned to drama and photographed over 20 TV drama series as well as feature films. With the director Colin Bucksey he filmed ‘Dealers’ starring Paul Megan and Rebecca de Mornay in 89, ‘Notorious’ in 91 and ‘September’ with Edward Fox, Jacqueline Bisset and Mariel Hemmingway in 95. Other directors include David Blair who made ‘Donovan Quick’ with Colin Firth in 99 for the BBC, Paul Marcus who directed "Murder Rooms" in 2001 and the feature film "Heidi’ with Max Von Sydow and Geraldine Chaplin in 2005. With Brian Grant, a director from the music era, I photographed ‘Life is Wild’ for CBS, Paramount 2007 , ‘Sinbad’ for Sky Atlantic 2011 and the first series of ‘The Worst Witch’ for the BBC\NETFLIX in 2017. He also provided the second unit photography for 'The Full Monty' in 1997.
He passed away on the 7th February 2026 and is survived by his wife Beverley, sons Billy and Luke and grandchildren Theo and Emily.
