Hagen Bogdanski was born in Berlin on April 24 1965. As a teenager, he tried himself as an actor, for instance in the childrens" programme "Die Sendung mit der Maus". After studying at the Berlin School of Photography, he was an Assistant DoP for several years, and worked with renowned cinematographers like Xaver Schwarzenberger, Jürgen Jürges and Gernot Roll. Beginning with "Die Spur der roten Fässer" (1996), he was Director of Photography on many film and TV productions, including three films by Oskar Roehler: "Gierig" (1999), "Die Unberührbare" (2000) and "Der alte Affe Angst" (2003).

In 2005 he was nominated for the German Camera Prize for his work on the TV thriller "Minenspiel". The following year, he won the German Film Prize for his photography in Florian Henckel-Donnersmarck"s debut "Das Leben der Anderen". After shooting numerous TV productions, Bogdanski was DoP on the mulit-award winning period piece "The Young Victoria", a British-German co-production starring Emily Blunt. The same year, he helmed the camera in Leander Haußmann"s comedy "Dinosaurier – Gegen uns seht ihr alt aus!" and in the Hildegard Knef biopic "Hilde" – for which he was again nominated for a German Film Prize.