Wolfgang Suschitzky

Wolfgang Suschitzky, BSC (29 August 1912 – 7 October 2016), was an Austrian-born British documentary photographer, as well as a cinematographer perhaps best known for his collaboration with Paul Rotha in the 1940s and his work on Mike Hodges' 1971 film Get Carter.

"[3] Steve Chibnall writes that Suschitzky "[developed] a reputation as an expert location photographer with a documentarist's ability to extract atmosphere from naturalistic settings.

[7] As he was brought up with no faith, he remembered the envy of his friends that he was allowed to miss religious classes and sit outside reading a book and described himself as "a very naughty boy.

Suschitzky's first love was zoology, but he realised he could not make a living in Austria in this discipline, so instead, influenced by his sister, he studied photography at the Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt.

Suschitzky married a Dutch woman, Helena Wilhelmina Maria Elisabeth (Puck) Voûte in Hampstead and they moved to the Netherlands.

In the 1960s, Suschitzky work included Joseph Strick's adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses (1967) and Hammer Film Productions' Vengeance of She (Cliff Owen, 1968).

[12] His last film before photographing Get Carter was the adaptation of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970) directed by Douglas Hickox.

Issue 12 of Lid magazine featured a twenty-eight-page portfolio of Suschitzky's photographs with a portrait and essay by Gerard Malanga.

On the one hand, they represent vivid records that provide an account of what are now historical contexts, of traditional craft and of heavy industrial production, but above all of social relationships within a restless world.

The fact that they were taken either on the periphery or at the very heart of (documentary) film sets [...] is also an essential characteristic that contributes to Wolf Suschitzky's distinctive blend of naturalistic and staged moments.