Artist Statement
In recent years working with color has offered new opportunities for my creative responses. Taking what would have been realistic and adding elements gives a more inner-directed outcome. This series of abstractions comes out of specific encounters while traveling through the back roads of Baja California. Much of Baja is sparsely populated and remote. Hurricanes have devastated many communities over the years. It must be a tough life but the Mexican spirit compensates and survives. These photographs echo my reactions and observations while experiencing this unique land.
Bio
Born and raised in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio in 1945, I first became interested in photography in high school. Early work experience was photography related and included summers as publicity photographer for a local racetrack. After I completed a B.F.A. in Photography at Ohio University, the US Navy offered photographic experience well beyond my expectations. Assignments ranged from documenting NATO Exercises in the North Atlantic to earthquake assistance in Peruvian Andes. Following the Navy and a move to Arizona, my career took me into television news videography and into teaching photography at the college level.
Art on the other hand became my mode of expressing life and resulted in an M.F.A. from Arizona State University. Participation in the Ansel Adams and Friends of Photography workshops as a student and assistant was most influential in my creative career. The opportunity to study with Wynn Bullock, Gary Winogrand, Jerry Uelsmann, Fredrick Sommer, W. Eugene Smith along with Ansel Adams and other masters opened a vision for my future. I have been drawing from these lessons to develop my personal body of work.
Neil A. Miller