David Eggby Daylight

David Eggby is an Australian cinematographer whose first feature film was George Miller's Mad Max (1979), and whose collaboration with Rob Cohen included Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993), Dragonheart (1996), and Daylight (1996). Eggby began his career at Crawford Productions in 1965 after six years as a Naval Airman Photographer with the Royal Australian Navy, working on television series including Homicide and Matlock Police before breaking into features. (wikipedia, imdb)

Mad Max established Eggby as a cinematographer who could shoot action at ground level

For Mad Max, Eggby executed practical photography that no established cinematographer would have attempted on the budget -- suspended from motorcycles for close-up chase shots, rigging cameras at road level to capture the kinetic energy that made the film an international sensation. The Australian Film Institute nominated him for Best Cinematography. The experience defined his career: Eggby became the person directors called when the action had to look real and the budget could not afford to fake it. (wikipedia)

Daylight required Eggby to light a tunnel that was both claustrophobic and legible

The 1,522-foot tunnel set at Cinecitta Studios posed a specific problem: the space had to feel suffocatingly enclosed while still allowing audiences to track the action. Eggby worked with the practical constraints of the set -- 16 water tanks for flooding sequences, smoke machines simulating toxic fumes, and the 160-foot ventilation shaft rig with its 18-foot-diameter fans. The opening explosion sequence, which multiple critics singled out as the film's most impressive technical achievement, was lit for maximum impact within a space that could not accommodate conventional film lighting rigs. (variety)

Eggby's career after Daylight moved between action films and genre work

Following Daylight, Eggby shot David Twohy's Pitch Black (2000), the science-fiction film that launched Vin Diesel's career, applying the same practical-light approach to an alien landscape. His other credits include Blue Streak (1999), Scooby-Doo (2002), and Ironclad (2011). He received seven Gold ACS awards, was named Australian Cinematographer of the Year in 2001, and was inducted into the Australian Cinematographers Society Hall of Fame in 2012. (imdb, wikipedia)