Description
McKinleigh Lair is a freelance American documentary cinematographer and photographer from Tulsa, Oklahoma, available to travel as needed for assignments.
Her cinematography can be seen on VICE's award-winning nightly news program and Showtime specials, in the Sundance 2022 award-winning film Aftershock, on television and in print for PBS American Portrait, and in various other productions, including for Motto Pictures, Mint Pictures, Firelight Films, RadicalMedia, and Business Insider.
She has been living in Germany on a U.S. State Department grant since August 2021, working as DP on Fulbright Scholar Leah Galant's forthcoming Holocaust memorial culture film, photographing monster trucks, campfires, and baseball for an upcoming photo series, taking journalism coursework, and learning the German language.
As a Park Scholar studying documentary and anthropology at Ithaca College she spent significant time living abroad (in London, Seoul, and Sweden) before directing the College Emmy-nominated One Nation Under Guns and graduating Magna Cum Laude. She cut her teeth assisting on productions for Kartemquin Films, The New York Times The Weekly, and pre-screening for POV | American Documentary – all while making You Know the Drill.
McKinleigh will be available for work in the U.S. again beginning in mid-July 2022. She owns her own camera, drone, and sound gear, is a member of the Documentary Cinematographers Alliance, and has an FAA Part 107 certification.