British director Bernard Knowles started his career as a newspaper photographer, and in the 1920s journeyed to the US and worked as a photographer for the Detroit News. Upon his return to England in 1922 he was hired by Gainsborough Pictures as an assistant cameraman, and it didn't take long for him to become a full-fledged Director of Photography. He gained a reputation as an innovator in photographic techniques and for his mastery of moody, atmospheric black-and-white photography, most notably on such classic films as 39 Basamak (1935), King Solomon's Mines (1937) and Gaslight (1940). After World War II he set out to fulfill his ambition of becoming a director, and his debut was the well-received ghost story A Place of One's Own (1945). However, his next film, The Magic Bow (1946), a "biopic" of 19th-century violinist/composer Nicolo Paganini, was a critical and commercial flop, being derided as heavy-handed and slow-moving. His film career faded somewhat after that, and in the mid-'50s he turned to television, making the occasional foray back into feature films.