Hurlbut's cinematography work on the 2005 film Into the Blue received positive reception from film critic Roger Ebert.
He noted that he had viewed a draft version of the film and praised the cinematography work done by Hurlbut.
He has received positive comments from film critics for his cinematography work on films including Drumline and Mr. 3000, and in a review of the film Into the Blue Roger Ebert highlighted Hurlbut's work.
Hurlbut received a nomination for an award from the American Society of Cinematographers for his cinematography work on the movie, becoming the youngest cinematographer ever to have been nominated for an American Society of Cinematographers award for a debut film.
Hurlbut's cinematography work on the 2006 romantic comedy was positively received by film critic Michael H. Kleinschrodt of The Times-Picayune, who wrote: "Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut finds interesting angles from which to shoot and photographs a formal cotillion with panache".
Though Associated Press writer David Germain gave a negative review overall of Into the Blue, he wrote positively of Hurlbut's cinematography work, commenting: "Shane Hurlbut's cinematography buoys the movie, but his lovely pictures of the actors swimming among jellyfish and shimmery aquatic vegetation cannot compensate for everything else".
His work on the 2006 romantic comedy Something New where he collaborated with director Sanaa Hamri was positively received in The Times-Picayune and The Journal News, and his cinematography work on the 2006 film Waist Deep with director Vondie Curtis-Hall was well received in The Seattle Times.
Throughout the movie, there was simply too much light reflected onto the screen for Gordon Willis's extraordinary cinematography to work as well as it does in a darkened theatre or even at home, on a TV screen.
Islam's own mechanically controlled camera searches Harrison's workshop, the camera movement spelling out the word CINEMATOGRAPHY as it works its way around the space, scanning shelves and stairs, a man at his workbench, tangles of cable and satisfying piles of hardware, all to the sound of whirring motors.
