On the heels of his recent Best Cinematography feting from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for his work in Children of Men, Emmanuel Lubezki took top honors in the feature film competition last night at the 21st annual American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.

This is the first ASC Award for Lubezki, who was nominated along with Dick Pope, for The Illusionist; Dean Semler, for Apocalypto; Robert Richardson, for The Good Shepherd; and Vilmos Zsigmond, for The Black Dahlia. The award was presented by Tim Allen, who noted, “All of these artists contributed their talent for writing with light and motion to each story.”

Charlize Theron, meanwhile, presented Allen Daviau — an Oscar nominee for films like E.T., The Color Purple, The Empire of the Sun and Bugsy — with the Lifetime Achievement Award, while the ASC John Alonzo Heritage Award — named in honor of the cinematographer of such classics as Harold and Maude, Norma Rae and Scarface — was presented to a pair of student filmmakers, Brian Melton from the North Carolina School of the Arts and Lyle Vincent from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. For more information, visit American Society of Cinematographers’ Web site.