John S. Bartley

John S. Bartley

Cinematographer. Born 12 February 1947 in Wellington, New Zealand. Died 17 August 2025.

CinematographerNew Zealand-born Canadian
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Title on Fi1m
Born
12 February 1947, Wellington, New Zealand
Died
17 August 2025

Biography

John Stanley Bartley (also credited as John S. Bartley) was a New Zealand-born Canadian cinematographer. Born in Wellington, he began his career in theatre and television lighting in Australia before moving to Canada and the United States, where he worked as a gaffer on various productions and later became a director of photography.

Bartley served as director of photography on the first three seasons of the television series The X-Files (1993–1996). He later worked on Lost (2004–2010), Bates Motel (2013), Vikings (2013) and The Good Doctor (2017–2018), as well as feature films including Eight Legged Freaks (2002) and second-unit photography on The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008).

He was a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. Bartley received a Primetime Emmy Award in 1996 for the The X-Files episode "Grotesque" and additional Emmy nominations for his work on the series and on Lost and Bates Motel. He died in Los Angeles in 2025.

Films and series

Beyond what we have reviewed, John S. Bartley is known for The Good Doctor (2017), Vikings (2013), Lost (2004), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Wrong Turn (2003), Bates Motel (2013), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) and Eight Legged Freaks (2002).