Joseph B. Walker was the first recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award.

Walker, who began his career as a cinematographer in 1914, is the inventor of the zoom lens. He held 20 patents on various camera-related inventions he devised and perfected during his long career. He worked as a cinematographer on more than 160 films, including 18 of the 25 motion pictures made by Frank Capra, such as "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," and "Lost Horizon." Walker won three Academy Award nominations for "You Can't Take It With You," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" and "The Jolson Story."

During his 27 years under contract to Columbia Pictures as a cinematographer, Walker bridged the gap from silents to sound by designing and supervising the construction of lightweight camera blimps, follow-focus devices, fade in/out attachments and many other photographic control devices involving optical diffusion techniques. Active into his 90s, he was working on a pictorial enhancement device when he won the Sawyer Award. He died in 1985.