The Curious Case of Benjamin Button photographed by Claudio Miranda; The Dark Knight shot by Wally Pfister, ASC; The Reader by Chris Menges, BSC and Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC; Revolutionary Road by Deakins; and Slumdog Millionaire by Anthony Dod Mantle, BSC are the finalists in the feature film category of the 23rd Annual American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Awards competition. The winner will be named during the awards celebration here at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on February 15.

“This annual celebration is our way of letting our colleagues from around the world know that their peers in the ASC recognize their inherent visual talent and spirited ability to get compelling stories on the screen in this collaborative art form,” says ASC President Daryn Okada. “We also hope this celebration inspires generations of filmmakers to follow their dreams.”

These are the eighth and ninth nominations for Deakins who earned top honors in 1995 for The Shawshank Redemption and in 2002 for The Man Who Wasn’t There. It’s the fourth nomination for Menges, the second for Pfister, and the first for Dod Mantle and Miranda.

“Artful cinematography is generally meant to be transparent to audiences but there are countless visual nuances that help to create a sense of time and place, while evoking emotional responses that are in tune with the intentions of the actors and directors,” says ASC Awards Committee Chairman Michael Goi, ASC. “In the opinion of their peers, who considered hundreds of movies, these five extraordinarily talented individuals have set the contemporary standard for artful cinematography in a very competitive field.”

For more information about the 23nd Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement awards, visit the ASC Web site (www.theasc.com) or call 323-969-4333.