Congratulations to Rachel Morrison. She is the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Cinematography category. Morrison photographed "Mudbound" and is the cinematographer for Marvel Studios upcoming feature "Black Panther". Dee Rees, the director of "Mudbound", became the first African-American woman to be nominated in a writing category (Best Adapted Scrennplay). "Lady Bird" filmmaker Greta Gerwig became the fifth woman to be nominated for a Best Director award today. Overall, 40 women received nominations for work outside of the acting categories.

Rachel Morrison is getting a lot of press lately due to her nomination and the success of "Black Panther". In addition to being the director of photography on "Mudbound", Morrison operated the camera. In a recent interview, Morrison explains why she prefers to be behind the camera rather than delegate that job to someone else.

"Part of the reason why I love to operate is because I find that so much of what we do is instinctual. It’s dancing with the actors and responding to their body language, and you feel what the right place for the camera is at any given moment. Sometimes that’s frontal, sometimes that’s a profile, sometimes that’s a silhouette, and sometimes that’s half-light. I think there’s a real intuition to that.

I operated on this film, as I’ve done on almost every film. Authenticity, to me, is something that you feel, and if it doesn’t feel authentic, you pick up on it right away. Dee was very clear about not wanting it to feel like stage makeup, everybody feeling like they were sort of caked in the dirt and the mud. Really for me, it’s just intuiting where the right place for the camera is in relation to what the emotional journey is."

Rachel Morrison did not win on Sunday, but she did stand and applaud when Roger Deakins accepted his award. Deakins, who won for "Blade Runner 2049", is an industry veteran who was first nominated in 1995 for "The Shawshank Redemption". Deakins is currently filming "The Goldfinch", starring Nicole Kidman and Ansel Elgort.