See these Oscar-nominated movies like you never have before

A former Marine, a photojournalist who has covered war and a man who got his start documenting the lives of gang members in Los Angeles had a hand in some of the most lauded films of the year, but their work doesn’t live on the big screen.

As unit or set photographers, Eli Joshua Adé, Agata Grzybowska and Merrick Morton were tasked with capturing the action and atmosphere on the sets of three of this year’s Oscar-nominated films: “Sinners,” “Hamnet” and “One Battle After Another,” respectively. Their stunning images — haunting, ethereal and bold — speak to the historic nature of the films, and are a testament to the photographers’ own thoughtful approaches to their work.

Although their exhilarating finished products are quite different, their techniques are similarly rooted in patience and stealthy movement.

“To be able to tell a story in a still requires stillness, not just physically, but mentally too,” said Adé, who credited his time in the Marine Corps with helping him build those skills.

“I can stand still for a very long time, and in boot camp that was a lot of what we did — stand still,” he said.

It all contributed to Adé's seamless way of existing on set, remaining out of the way but capturing the images he wanted.

“I perch, I stand still because I don't want anybody to pose for me,” said the photographer, who is the 2023 recipient of the Publicist’s Award for Excellence in Unit Stills Photography. “Some of the best shots I've gotten have been after the director calls ‘Cut’ and before they say ‘Action.’”

Polish-born Grzybowska worked as a photojournalist in Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, something that drew “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao to select her as the set photographer for the period drama.

Zhao gave her creative license to do anything she wanted, Grzybowska said in an email.

“‘When you’re in a war zone, there’s what goes to CNN or another medium, but there are also spirits around. You capture things people do not see,’” Grzybowska remembered Zhao saying to her. “She wanted me to capture those spirits — to photograph the unseen, the unconscious that surrounds us.”

Grzybowska, who distilled much of the earthy, otherworldly energy of “Hamnet” into her photography for the movie, said her own “introverted” nature allowed her to achieve “a different kind of work.”

“As a photographer you are an observer, a witness to history unfolding right before your eyes,” she said. “You have to be patient, careful, and sensitive to small details, and the stories of others.” Even if those stories are scripted.

Morton, who previously worked with Taylor Hackford, the Coen Brothers and Steven Spielberg, among others, said he earned his gig on Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent and feted movie because of his own reputation for being “stealthy.”

“I've been called a sniper before on set,” said Morton, who is a founding member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers.

“What I do is totally separate from the filmmaking process, and that's my mindset,” he said.

Morton, who often works in black and white, got his start photographing Los Angeles gang culture in the 1980s, his entry point to street photography. The experience allowed him to develop a documentary-style feel in his work, setting him apart from traditional set photographers. His first job in that capacity came on the 1987 film “La Bamba.”

Adé’s images in many ways highlight the background performers on the “Sinners” set as much as the big-name stars. That was his call.

Of the performers posing as field workers whom he captured, he said, “getting an opportunity to paint these people in a better light than what was done in the past” was important.

“You're doing a laborious, painful thing, but there's still beauty in it, I can still capture beauty in it,” he said.

The authenticity of the experience was not lost on him.

“Being out in the sugar cane fields — and you know, I'm from the South, so I know the history of a lot of this land — I often thought, we're on the same ground that our ancestors had to work for free, and here we are doing a multi-million dollar project.”

Those feelings even became “supernatural” for him at a certain point during the shoot, which he acknowledged was often grueling.

“It would be like 3 o'clock in the morning, we're out in the middle of the bayou. And it felt really still, it felt like the ancestors were watching us and giving their blessings.”

Adé appreciated “Sinners” director — and longtime friend and colleague — Ryan Coogler’s painstaking attention to detail with regard to the background actors and where they came from.

“When you have people who were born and raised in Louisiana, and some of those people were born and raised in Mississippi — their families are farmers, they're not pretending to look like it's a hard day's work. It just reads on their face: it's a hard day's work.”

The end result made the work feel effortless for him.

“I didn't have to pose anybody or tell them how to look at me. They just — it was them,” he recalled.

“Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” come from Warner Bros. Pictures, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.