Aaron David Kovalchik is a Local 600 cinematographer who grew up in the woods of New England and was inspired to pick up a camera in high school by his cantankerous grandpa, Vincent, a National Geographic photographer.

Aaron pursued photography, filmmaking and creative writing at Brown University, RISD & NYU, soaking up the iconoclastic arts culture of Providence, shooting his classmate’s films, and beginning to explore the film production/arts landscape of New York City.

After college, he cut his teeth on NYC indie films as a loader, quickly moving up to focus puller and jumping over to gaffer—all the while continuing to work as a cinematographer, mostly for NYU and Columbia MFA students.

Aaron holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University, where he taught fiction writing and has taught filmmaking at Northwestern University.

Primarily filming narrative features/shorts and favoring transgressive projects by historically marginalized writer/directors, he fosters an on-set environment that allows directors, actors, and the crew a safe space to push their boundaries.

His work has shown at festivals such as Rotterdam, Sundance, New York, Tribeca, SXSW, Locarno, BAFICI, AFI, Outfest, BFI Flare, Brooklyn, Slamdance, and Seattle as well as museums/galleries such as The New Museum, The Hammer Museum, and the Taipei Biennial.

Feature credits include Vicky Wight’s The Lost Husband for Netflix, Quinn Shephard’s Blame which won best actress at Tribeca, Natalia Leite’s MFA, Kitao Sakurai’s Aardvark which won special mention at Locarno, Matthew Lessner’s Automatic at Sea, Vincent Gagliostro’s After Louie, Laura E. Davis’s Inheritance, and Lawrence Michael Levine’s Gabi on the Roof in July. Notable shorts include Myna Joseph’s Fit Model, Khary Saeed Jones’s Hug, and Chris Teague’s Monkeywrench.

Aaron has been the director of photography of The Eric Andre Show for [adult swim].

Other cinematography credits include fictionalized scenes for Frédéric Tcheng’s documentary Halston which premiered at Sundance, narrative scenes for Tom Kalin’s episode of Pride for FX, and several video art pieces for artist Nathaniel Mellors. Aaron is currently working on Khary Saeed Jones’s narrative/documentary hybrid feature Night Fight, and Myna Joseph’s feature Fit Model.

Commercial clients include Coca-Cola, Vans, Blue Apron, Microsoft, Vox, DevaCurl, and Axe.

He is currently based in Chicago, where his wife, Lakshmi Padmanabhan, is a film theorist at Northwestern University. Besides New York, he has also lived and worked in Los Angeles.