Filmmaker Martin Scorsese has paid tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator Michael Ballhaus, who passed away at the age of 81 earlier this week after a short illness.

The director and the cinematographer worked together on six films, including the Oscar-winning drama "The Departed".

The two started working together in the 1980s.

"It was Michael who really gave me back my sense of excitement in making movies. For him, nothing was impossible," Scorsese wrote in a statement, reports pagesix.com.

"If I asked him for something difficult, he would approach it with enthusiasm."

Apart from "The Departed", Ballhaus did cinematography for Scorsese's "After Hours" (1985), "The Color of Money" (1986), "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), "Goodfellas" (1990), "The Age of Innocence" (1993) and "Gangs of New York" (2002).