Javier Aguirresarobe Zubía (born 10 October 1948) is a Basque Spanish cinematographer. After garnering several Goya Awards in his home country, he became widely known internationally for his work on The Others (2001), directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Among many others, he has worked on Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), the Twilight film series (2009–2010), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017).
Javier Aguirresarobe Zubía was born in Eibar, Guipúzcoa, Basque Country, Spain, on 10 October 1948. He has an older brother who was an industrial photographer, whom he used to help in the lab as a teenager, and this sparked his passion for photography.
After earning a diploma in optics, he moved to Madrid to study journalism and worked at various newspapers before deciding to change tack. He studied cinematography at the Official School of Cinematography, which has close links to the Spanish film industry. Only the top nine students in the entrance exam were admitted to the cinematography course. The students used 35mm film.
In 1983, Aguirresarobe's first work as a cinematographer was for "a very small movie," La Muerte de Mikel (The Death of Mikel), which turned out to be a success at the box office.
He has mostly worked alone but once worked with Spanish cinematographer Luis Cuadrado (The Spirit of the Beehive).
He first attracted international attention with the 1997 film Secrets of the Heart and even more in 2001 with The Others, directed by Alejandro Amenábar and starring Nicole Kidman.
Aguirresarobe was the cinematographer for the 2015 feature film Goosebumps.
Aguirresarobe has worked with Spanish directors such as Imanol Uribe, Montxo Armendáriz, Alejandro Amenábar, Pedro Almodóvar, Julio Médem, Montxo Armendáriz, and Fernando Trueba, and internationally, Miloš Forman, John Hillcoat, and Woody Allen.
Aguirresarobe worked as a cinematographer for the film adaptation of New Moon, released in 2009, and on the Twilight film series.
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