Born in Peoria, Illinois, Garmes came to Hollywood in 1916. His first job was as an assistant in the paint department at Thomas H. Ince Studios, but he soon became a camera assistant before graduating to full-time cameraman. His earliest films were comedy shorts, and his career did not fully take off until the introduction of sound films.
Garmes was one of the early proponents of video technology, which he advocated as early as 1972. That year, he had been hired by Technicolor to photograph the short film Why, which was intended to test whether video was a viable technology for shooting feature films.
According to American Cinematographer magazine, "Although officially unaccredited, Lee Garmes photographed a considerable portion of Gone with the Wind. Many consider the famous railroad yard sequence among his finest cinematic efforts."[2]
Declaring that his cinematography can be “followed like a thread” through films he photographed for various directors, Garmes acknowledged his debt to Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn:
Rembrandt has been my favorite artist. I’ve always used his technique of north light—of having my main source of light on the set coming from the north…And of course I’ve always followed Rembrandt in my fondness for low key. If you look at his paintings, you’ll see an awful lot of blacks. No strong highlights.[3]
Garmes was one of many Hollywood veterans from the silent era interviewed by Kevin Brownlow for the television series Hollywood (1980).[4]
.jpg)
