M. E. Miller The images you see on my website offer a glimpse into how my mind works. I see unexpected beauty in the patterns and textures of ordinary objects, and my chosen medium of macro and close up photography allows me to share my vision with you. I see possibilities in materials as utilitarian and mundane as window screen and silicone sealant. These possibilities inspire me to sculpt images from unlikely materials, and (with meticulous lighting and careful composition) shift the viewer's perspective in the process. My wish is to illustrate the beauty and intricacy of the world around us, a world often ignored or unnoticed by the casual observer, a world sometimes no bigger than a pencil eraser or the head of a pin.
A self-taught photographer, I have been taking pictures for about 20 years now. A bit of a rebel with little interest in formal education, I allow my instincts and inspirations to guide my artistic evolution. When an idea inspires me, I become obsessed with it until I produce an image that pleases me, discovering new techniques as I go.
The rich, vibrant colors that you see are due in part to the fact that I shoot Fujichrome® Provia slide film in medium and large format for its faithful color rendition and ultra fine grain. I then print them as giclees using an Espon Stylus Pro 7800. I chose the Espon Stylus Pro 7800 to produce my giclees because of its ability to produce fine art prints with amazing color fidelity and scratch resistance, while providing consistently stable colors that significantly outperform lesser ink technologies. Because it prints using tiny variable-sized droplets (as small as 3.5 picoliter) the resulting print is virtually continuous tone, rather than the tiny dots used in more traditional fine art reproduction processes like lithographs. The end result is a print that is very close to the continuous tones of a photograph created in the darkroom using traditional paper and chemicals.
On a more personal note, I am a native Californian who spent a number of years ‘gypsying' around the West. Three frigid years in Montana, six long months in Oregon and two and a half dry years in Nevada were enough to satisfy my wanderlust for a while and several years ago my wife and partner, Laura, and I came back ‘home' to put down some roots in far northern California. We live in a very rural area where the days are quiet and the nights are dark.
This peaceful and beautiful setting has sparked my creativity and allowed me to concentrate my energies fully on photography. I have been much more prolific here than in the previous ‘gypsy' years, so this must be the right place . . . for now!