ยฉ Mike Miller
The Poster on the Wall
When I was a kid, I used to go to a friend’s house. On his bedroom wall he had a poster of Tupac. I don’t remember anything else about that room. I remember that poster. I had looked at it hundreds of times without knowing who had taken it.
Today we interviewed Mike Miller.
Miller photographed Tupac, Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg. He documented the birth of West Coast hip hop before it became a global phenomenon, when it was still a culture being built in the streets, in clubs, in recording studios across Los Angeles. His photographs ended up on album covers, in books, in museums. And on the bedroom walls of young people around the world.
In the interview, he told us something that struck me. His daughter mentioned that her friends had his posters hanging in their rooms. And in that moment, he understood that his photographs had crossed something he hadn’t anticipated: time, generations, geographic distance. He hadn’t taken them for that. He had taken them to do his job. To be, as he puts it, a bridge between the world and the artist.
That is the point that interests me most. Miller never thought of himself as an archivist of culture. Yet what he built is a visual document of a movement that changed music, language, and the way entire generations moved through the world. Myself included. That passion for Tupac was passed on to me by my friend. That passion for photography was passed on to me by photography itself, looking at images I didn’t yet know how to read but that were already speaking to me.
I would never have imagined, looking at that poster on my friend’s wall, that our paths would cross later in life. Photography does this: it connects moments and people across distances that you can’t see until you find yourself inside them. Mike Miller closed that circle for me.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.