The director of photography was Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles' 1942 film "The Magnificent Ambersons". Because Laughton had very little experience working with film, Cortez would visit his house to explain various concepts of camera lenses, camera heights, and what effect each of them gave. Laughton told Cortez that the nitrate prints of the silent movies that he had been watching for research impressed them with how sharp they looked, so he asked Cortez to create that same sharpness for "The Night of the Hunter". The studio brought most of the crew from a recent film "Black Tuesday" because they had worked so well together, and Cortez had experimented with a new black-and-white film Kodak Tri-X on that production, with great results. He chose to shoot certain scenes of this film on Tri-X because it had a sharp contrast that would help fulfill Laughton's vision. The studio however, tried to convince them to shoot on color film instead because they thought it would sell more tickets. Gregory fought to keep it black-and-white: "I could not see this film being in color." The style of the cinematography was split up between the two units: the first unit of the crew shot the scenes in and around the Harpers' home, which were very dark, whereas the second unit shot the scenes traveling along the river, which were designed to look more like images from the children's perspective. One scene in particular that Cortez has spoken about is in the bedroom after Willa has overheard Powell threatening the children. He lit this scene with a halo of light surrounding Willa's head on the pillow, foreshadowing that her death is imminent. Cortez also brought back the Iris shot in one scene, as an homage to silent films.