Stanley Kubrick’s life as a still photographer

Now that explains much of his eye for composition.

Mr Kubrick's obsession with light motivated him to shoot all the candle lit scenes of 'Barry Lyndon' without supplemental lighting, using three Zeiss f/0.7 lenses. He wanted audiences to see what the characters saw.

Only ten such lenses were ever made and are still the fastest apertures ever used in filmmaking

https://m.dpreview.com/articles/9811242514/kubrick-s-f-0-7-l...

And very difficult to use, too; depth of field of a 50mm f/0.7 lens is about 20cm at 5 metres! So to keep his subjects in focus he had the actors move only sidewards in those scenes!