Peter Hannan ACS BSC was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1941 and has spent most of his professional career in Britain. He began working in television in Australia at the age of 17, initially as an assistant before becoming a news cameraman. He subsequently worked for Cinesound and Movietone, shooting newsreels and documentaries.
In 1964, Hannan travelled to Europe and eventually obtained work with British Movietone News. He then became freelance and entered feature filmmaking, joining the camera department at MGM on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He remained on the production for two years, progressing to focus puller.
Hannan subsequently worked as a camera operator and first assistant on films including Nicolas Roeg's Performance and Walkabout, and also worked on Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. In 1972 he became a Director of Photography.
His early work as a cinematographer included Full Circle, The Stud, Sredni Vashtar, Brimstone and Treacle and The Missionary. He went on to photograph Terry Jones's Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, The Razor's Edge, Roeg's Insignificance, Dance with a Stranger, Turtle Diary, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Withnail & I and A Handful of Dust.
Hannan developed a particularly strong working relationship with Nicolas Roeg and also worked with the members of Monty Python and George Harrison's HandMade Films. He later photographed Not Without My Daughter, Longitude, The Gathering Storm, Puckoon, Egypt, Dough and Terry Jones's Absolutely Anything.
His television work was recognised with a BAFTA for Best Photography and Lighting for Longitude in 2001.
Alongside his work as a Director of Photography, Hannan continued to undertake specialist and second-unit photography on major productions. His credits include Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Derailed and Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, on which he worked as Second Unit Director and Director of Photography.
Hannan was also involved in camera technology. Together with Laurie Frost and Richard Loncraine, he was recognised with an Academy Award for Scientific and Engineering Achievement for the development of the remote camera head known as the Hot-Head.
A member of both the Australian Cinematographers Society and the British Society of Cinematographers, Hannan was inducted into the ACS Hall of Fame in 2013.