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Big as in camera size…. While most editorial photographers use digital cameras and record moments at a rate of up to 10 frames per second, there’s one guy out there doing it in a completely different manner. Greg Miller is a large format editorial photographer. He shoots for magazines with a huge 8×10 film camera on a tripod – not posed studio stuff, Miller is out on the street, recording moments as they happen with everyday people, with his one frame per minute (or so) camera. How does he do it? Read on:

I recently saw your pictures in Time (voters in Missouri) with your byline. I googled the name (yours), and found gregorymillerphotography, who’s stuff I also really liked. Do people get you two confused sometime?

Yeah, he’s good and his children are adorable. Its hard having such a common name. There are about five Greg Miller photographers that I can find. There’s me, Greg in Atlanta (www.gregorymillerphotography.com), another one in upstate NY that does nature and nudes (www.gregmillerphotography.com), another one in Columbus, OH (www.gregmillerphoto.com) and a wedding photographer in Australia (www.gregmillerphotography.com.au). Incidentally, there is also a locksmith and Elvis impersonator, all named Greg Miller. Oh, and don’t forget the Dodger’s relief pitcher… We should all get together for a drink sometime… Then I think, you could have a unique name like Ted Kaczynski and think you are the only one until one day you turn on the news… (read more on next page)

Your background please: how did you get started in photography?
My earliest exposure to photography was my father’s small collection of pornography and National Geographic Magazines. My father was an amateur photographer in Nashville, Tennessee. He made many photographs of our family but the most memorable of these were the ones he made of my mother. Since many of these were nude, they showed a true desire for her and, for better or worse, illuminated for me as a child, the relationship my parents had to each other beyond my relationship to them as parents. I spent my influential years closely observing the duel reality that exists between parents and their children. I look for similar multilevel relationships when I photograph people today. Early on in my work, I was amazed with how the inclusion of people in a picture told a story or conveyed a narrative.

I shot and developed my first roll of film when I was 15 years old. The experience of seeing the negative images of my friends roll off the spool was electric. After spending a year apprenticing for a photographer during high school, I received a scholarship in photography to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York. While still attending SVA, I began working as a photographer freelancing for magazines in 1988. The income I received from commercial work allowed me to stay in New York and enabled me to survive as a photographer for the last 21 years. Likewise, my fine art work has always guided my commercial work. Last year I received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This was obviously a huge endorsement of the personal work that I have cultivated over the years. As a commercial photographer it is very easy to begin to think that your personal work is all just a (very) expensive hobby to serve your ego. It has always been a balance for me as I see that I can’t live without one or the other.

How would you describe your work to a blind person?
My pictures are of everyday people, often doing everyday things, like a couple sitting talking in a car, a minister walking to his church, or two cowboys sitting in a mall. My pictures are not simply about what people are doing, I photograph the tension or struggle between people. Even in pictures where only one person appears, I look for a moment in their eyes when you can see the relationship they have with themselves.

Have you always shot large format?
Like most people I started photographing with a series of 35mm cameras. I started with a Nikon (in High School) then moved to a Leica, and shot with that for many years. A teacher I met at School of Visual Arts, Lois Conner, with whom I have become close friends, encouraged me to shoot with a 4×5 press camera. I bought a Crown Graphic and rigged up a Norman flash to the side so I could photograph hand held in night clubs in the late 80’s. At this time, I was also influenced by the work of Garry Winogrand and Weegee. My love was for photographs with moments. My move from 35mm to large format was not so much about sharper pictures as about optics. The large lens produces a shallow depth of field effectively separating the subject from the background which appears to suspend reality.

It was important for my pictures to still have a moment. I have long felt that if a story is not told within the frame that the photograph is simply not successful.

When I switched to 8×10 in 1995, I was in love with this same optical effect created by a large lens and the large film area, but the moment all but disappeared and I was no longer suspending reality. I tired of the static nature of the portraits I was making. (people standing in the center eyes gazing into the lens) In 1997, I decided to try to photograph the way I had for years with my Leica, by walking around until I saw something, but instead of not talking to them I went up and explained very carefully what I wanted my subject to do. And because 8×10 film is so expensive, (often only using two shots of each situation) I wouldn’t click the shutter until the people were doing what I asked. This has evolved over the years. Now I am more open to the subject’s misinterpretation of what I have asked, or I hesitate and capture a different moment. Both help make photographs more natural and less staged looking. It is like I am a director of a very short film. If a film is believable, its successful, if it looks fake its not.

Why 8×10?
Its hard for me to remember what exactly possessed me to begin shooting 8×10 in 1995. I think I loved the work of the photographers, Lois Conner, Andrea Modica and Judith Joy Ross as well as the work of August Sander. But for me now, I love the camera. I actually think the more excited you are by the camera the better your pictures. Also I love the way people react to the camera. Since I so often need people to trust me in a short period of time, the large camera acts to disarm the situation faster than my words often can. People often see me before I see them. People have told me when I go up to them, “I knew you were going to ask me to take my picture.”

Do you still use petzval or other antique lenses? If so, why?
No, I only use modern Schneider lenses. I mostly shoot with a 240mm lens which is wide on an 8×10 camera but has minimal distortion.

Working with large format, especially 8×10, is slow. Do you miss moments?
Since I used to shoot with a Leica, missing moments is the first thing you notice when moving up to a larger camera. It feels like keeping up with a kindergarden class on crutches. But my relationship to moments changed. I still walk around with my camera looking for moments the way I used to with the Leica, but when I see something, instead of shooting it at that moment, I go up to the people and begin talking to them. Essentially, killing the moment. But I preserve the moment in my mind. Once they have agreed to being photographed, I become a director and they my actors. The trick to it “looking” like a moment is, it still needs to really be a moment. This process has evolved for me over the years. I realized that the more I control the picture, the less believable they are. I now embrace people’s misinterpretation of my directions, hesitate once people are doing what I ask or in some way disrupt the rhythm of the shoot in an attempt to capture a different moment.

Do you try to create moments or pose people?
After discovering that I direct my photographs, people have told me that they are disappointed that my moments are not real. I understand how they feel, but I try to explain that my moments are no less real than the ones I might have captured with a small camera. The way I see photographing moments is this: Moments are like trains coming into a train station. You hear the train, you run down the stairs and the doors close in your face. You missed the train, you can get angry and blame yourself for all the events that led up to missing that train… until the next train comes. You get on, go on with your day and forget about the first train. I almost always miss the first train. But I know I am going to miss that train. Its not about getting on that train for me. I photograph moments but not the exact moments I first saw. My pictures are based on a true story. My hope is the moment I actually photograph is better than the first moment which is gone forever anyway.

I feel like I could go on this topic for hours but I might just add that when I shoot commercial work I often have to cast the models, we do wardrobe, make-up, choose the location, etc. Its all cooked up. In contrast, my personal work is me walking around, by myself, looking and responding to the world. The camera I use and what I say (or don’t say), is of little consequence. The people I photograph are standing, often, where I found them, dressed in their own clothes. The important thing is, once I have focused on them and I have film in the camera, I stand there with the cable release in my hand and I wait. I wait for them to have the look in their eyes, the body language, the hand gesture that brought me to them in the first place. The trick to capturing a moment with a 35mm camera was waiting and it is the trick with large format.

How quickly can you set up a camera and be ready to make a picture when you’re out on the street?
I keep the camera set up when I am walking around. I wrap the dark cloth around the camera to protect it. Any time I spend setting up the tripod or metering, etc., allows them to watch me. As a photographer, I am being studied as much as I am studying them. This used to make me very uncomfortable, but I now understand that allowing them to look at me contributes to them trusting me. Slowing everything down is not such a bad thing for this reason.

Do you use any artificial light?
I never use strobes for my personal work since I am often shooting by myself. Being at the mercy of whatever light is available forces me to look for the best possible light I can find. And since I am already talking to my subject I will often ask them to move to where the best light is.

As for commercial work, I take assistants and I use strobe. I often base my artificial light on the existing light or natural light I have seen in my personal work. I also mix strobe with existing light. I like to say that my lighting is simple but that is often because I carry just a profoto pack and two heads around with me. But when I have a truck of equipment for larger jobs I usually end up using everything. I love to fine tune if I have the time.

Seems like you shoot wide open or close to it. Is this true?
Because I am photographing people, I shoot at a wider aperture to achieve the fastest shutter speed possible to avoid motion blur. I also like the suspended reality look the shallow depth of field produces.

If so, do you do this to isolate subject and make them stand out?
Yes.

Doesn’t shooting with big film get expensive?
Yes. In 2001, I began setting up a color darkroom (with an RA-4 processor) in my studio and have had one ever since. Setting that up was very expensive, but in the long run has made printing and contacting much cheaper and easier. Its really hard to be an artist if you have to pay money and go to a rental lab every time you want to be creative.

What is a typical cost for one sheet of film, its processing and subsequent scanning?
One sheet of 8×10 Kodak Portra film at Adorama in NY is 8.00. My lab costs for processing and contact is $12/10. So the total cost for one sheet, film, processing and contact is $30. Its painful when a person blinks.

Can you tell me what kind of feedback you normally get on your work?
When photo editors or art buyers are not aware that I shoot 8×10, my agent, Julian Richards (www.julianrichards.com), tells me that there is sometimes a pregnant pause after he says, “…and you know Greg shoots 8×10, right?” We have spent 10 years carefully explaining what it is that I do without making it sound like they will pay more money for less pictures. The truth is, that it is a whole different way of shooting. With large format there is more preconception about the way the picture should look. I make decisions before I shoot about where the camera should go, where the subject should go, what they are doing, etc. The result is more home runs and less base hits.

Do you do scans yourself? What do you use for scanning?
I have an Epson Perfection 750V flatbed scanner that scans transparencies up to 8×10. It’s great for most of my negative scanning needs. You can find negative holders and a few different fluids you can get to avoid Newton rings which are a nightmare. I had a show in LA recently of large digital C prints of some of my Nashville pictures. For those I pay for drum scans. But I am shopping around for a drum scanner since it pays for itself.

Can you name others shooting editorial using a large format camera?
Andrea Modica is the only one I know. She’s great. She has a portfolio of portraits that she did for Newsweek coming out week.

Who are some of your clients?
GOOD Magazine, Time, People, Oprah Magazine, Popular Mechanics, ESPN.

See more of Greg Miller’s work here.