- Member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). Served as President from 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2001.
- Kemper served as president of the American Society of Cinematographers from 1993-96 and 1999-2001 and received the guild's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.
- Kemper worked with the leading directors of the 1970s including John Cassavetes, Sidney Lumet, Anthony Harvey, Michael Ritchie, Ulu Grosbard, Peter Yates, Karel Reisz, Elaine May, J. Lee Thompson, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Robert Wise, Carl Reiner, Bob Rafelson, Irvin Kershner, Richard Attenborough, and Norman Jewison.
- On his very first day on Husbands - he came on after the original DP, Aldo Tonti, decided to leave after a week - Kemper was challenged to light a scene in a men's bathroom in which the walls were painted black and all the actors in it were wearing black overcoats for a funeral. "Cassavetes came out on the set and wished me good luck on my first time out." I said, 'John, will you please tell me how do you expect me to light this set?' ... He said very simply, 'You're the cinematographer, I'm the director, you figure it out,' and he walked away. That's how I got thrown in head-first into the steaming hot water.".
- The New Jersey native said he had to wear ice skates when he photographed the hockey scenes in George Roy Hill's Slap Shot (1977) and frequently found himself the victim of a practical joke when the actors who played the Hanson brothers (Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and David Hanson) used their sticks to trip him.
- He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the 1987 CBS telefilm Kojak: The Price of Justice and shot the acclaimed 1985 CBS miniseries The Atlanta Child Murders.
- Kemper was adept at various genres but showed a particular flair for comedy on Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Mr. Mom (1983), Beethoven (1992), Tommy Boy (1995) and Jingle All the Way (1996).
- He was a graduate of Seton Hall University.
- Kemper earned his inaugural D.P. credit on Husbands (1970), written and directed by John Cassavetes, then shot Elia Kazan's final feature, The Last Tycoon (1976) and Tim Burton's first, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).
- In 1954, Kemper landed a job as a video camera operator for EUE, a television commercial production company in New York, then went to work as an assistant cameraman and operator for top cinematographers including Arthur Ornitz.
- As a cinematographer, Kemper collaborated extensively with director Arthur Hiller.
- Kemper graduated from Seton Hall University - he had built the radio station there - and was hired by a local television station, where he operated a sound boom, mixed sound and served as technical director for live studio programs. His boss denied his request to take a couple of weeks off to go to California to train in the use of videotape, which had recently been invented - so he quit.
- His first show business job was as an engineer at New York's Channel 13, which in the late 1950s was a commercial outlet located in Newark and owned by National Telefilm Associates. After laboring away on such programs as Open End and Play of the Week, Kemper secured a position as an engineering executive at Screen Gems, the Hollywood-based TV subsidiary of Columbia Pictures.
- His very first film was Cassavetes' Husbands, and it was an education in itself. "We shot more than a million-and-a-half feet of film during 10 weeks in New York and 12 weeks in London," Kemper recalled. "That's the way Cassavetes worked.".
- Kemper said that his job required a bit of instinct.
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