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After an early sojourn at the New York Stock Exchange, American cinematographer Floyd Crosby turned his hobby of photography into a vocation. His earliest film work was in the documentaries of such filmmakers as Robert Flaherty; in 1931 Crosby was honored with an Academy Award for his work on the Flaherty/F.W. Murnau collaboration Tabu (1931). Crosby's career in the non-documentary field began in 1951 when he functioned as co-photographer with James Wong Howe for Robert Rossen's The Brave Bulls. The following years, Crosby's crisp black-and-white photography was a major contributing factor in the success of High Noon (1952). His second-unit location photography for The Old Man and the Sea far outclassed the studio-tank medium shots of star Spencer Tracy. From 1960 through 1966, Crosby was principal director of photography for the low-budget, high-grossing films of producer/director Floyd Crosby, including such visual banquets as The Pit and the Pendulum (1960) and The Raven (1963). Floyd Crosby was the father of singer David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young).