BIO

Born two days before Christmas, Sarah Brandes (O’Mara) entered the world making an impression as the largest baby born to date at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

 She discovered her passion for filmmaking in high school, where she was deeply inspired by the work of video artists Bill Viola and Pipilotti Rist. Their emotionally driven visual storytelling sparked an artistic curiosity that would later shape her approach to cinematography.

After graduating from college in 2003, Sarah unexpectedly found herself drawn from the experimental video art into a world of narrative filmmaking. While her artistic roots remained firmly planted in visual-emotional expression, she developed an equal appreciation for precision, discipline, and collaboration in the realm of the narrative camera department. Working on The Wire and other major films shooting in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area, she discovered a love for bringing order to the chaos of filmmaking.

In 2008, during the uncertainty of the writers' strike, Sarah relocated to Los Angeles to work on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The move exposed her to a new level of filmmaking and a broader perspective on the craft. Over the next two decades, she built a successful career across nearly every role within the camera department, ultimately achieving her long-held goal as a 1st Assistant Cameraperson.

Sarah believed she had reached the career she had always envisioned until an unexpected opportunity to photograph a million-dollar independent feature called The Warm Season changed everything. Recognizing how rare that opportunity was, she embraced it—and discovered a passion for cinematography that united the two sides of herself she had spent years developing. The artist inspired by visual poetry and the technician devoted to precision suddenly found harmony in the same craft. That feature film would go on to win Best Cinematography in Santa Fe the year it was released.

Since committing fully to cinematography in 2022, Sarah has been the cinematographer on two independent feature films, more than five short films, and several commercial projects. She approaches every production with curiosity, discipline, and a desire to continue growing artistically and technically through intense collaboration.