photo project captures images, stories of combat veterans

PHOTO PROJECT CAPTURES IMAGES, STORIES OF COMBAT VETERANS
MARY KATHERINE QUASARANO
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 9, 2012

Great photographers adeptly manipulate exterior light and shadow in order to capture the interior ‘light and shadow’ essence of their subjects. Rob Miller is a great photographer. He is also a globally-recognized expert in automotive internal/external ambient lighting and is fast-becoming a global expert on the brilliant light and deep shadow experiences of combat veterans.

Beginnings

Miller’s parents were the first to recognize his gift and he credits them with providing lifelong encouragement as he pursued his art. “I started serious photography when I was twelve. I saved enough money from my paper route to buy a Minolta SLR camera and away I went. Within two months I was developing B/W film and prints. One year later I was developing color slides, film, and making 16 x 20 color prints under the stairs of my parents’ basement in Dearborn, Michigan.”

In the safety and wonder of this first dark room, Miller began to cultivate his deep connection to light and shadow.

Light

His first subjects were brides and grooms and wedding festivities; portraits bathed in joy and light. He began working as an apprentice for Hudson’s O’Conner Studios at the age of 16 and by 18 he was working on his own and shooting two weddings a week.

Shadow

In the third year of college he was given the opportunity to spend an entire summer with the Fire Departmentin Quincy, Massachusetts. “I documented what it was like to rescue people from horrific situations. It was pretty messy and really traumatic. That summer I came to understand how fragile and precious life is. I still have those images and sometimes look back at them and wonder how I ever did that.”

Light

In this third year of college he was also being recruited by both National Geographic and Honeywell PentaxCameras. He became Honeywell Pentax’s Technical Representative in Chicago in order to combine business skills with photography. “I had one of everything they made (six cases of camera equipment), a company car, and a fist full of plane tickets everywhere in the USA. It was an awesome experience.” Miller’s work took him back to Michigan where he married his wife, and the two became a family of seven.

Shadow

Miller’s father Herbert was a WWII Combat Veteran and POW (prisoner of war). “I knew he was a POW but when asked about his experiences by others or me his response was always the same, ‘Robert…it’s not important for you to know.’ My father never shared more than these words about his POW experience. I could see the sadness in his eyes every time I asked. So I just stopped asking.” Unbeknownst to Miller, his father had chronicled his POW experiencein a diary he kept hidden from the prying eyes of the Nazis. Several weeks after his father’s death, as he and his mother gathered belongings for donation, he came upon it.

“There it was wrapped like a present in brown paper−just as it was forty-nine years ago. My father told my mother he wrapped it to preserve it, but she knew my father encased it in paper to hide the horrific memories captured inside. Once wrapped and placed in his drawer he never looked at it again. His diary was filled with hopelessness and despair. I had four young children and one on the way bouncing around my house. I stashed it away until I could find the time to understand it.”

Out of Shadow and into Light

Thirteen years passed and Miller processed his father’s gift through hours of interviews with his mother and twenty trips to Europe retracing his father’s journey as a 22-year old POW. The outcome was Hidden Hell: Discovering My Father’s POW Diary, a book currently being developed as a screenplay. The gift of ‘light’ that came from exploring his father’s ‘shadow’ experience was the return of Rob’s passion for the storytelling art of photography.

Another gift that came from extensive European travels was selection for service as Executive Director of the Patton Foundation, a global foundation founded by Helen Patton, the granddaughter of General George S. Patton. There he partnered with Andrew Wakeford, a British director of the foundation, and together Miller & Wakeford created Portraits of Service: Looking into the Faces of Veterans, a photo book containing stories of combat veterans from around the world. “Every one of these veterans belongs to a community of veterans that extends globally. They were all in military service; they are all human beings and unique individuals. It doesn’t matter what side they were on, or whether their country was judged to be right or wrong. They all have war experiences that need to be told and understood. That’s what Portraits of Serviceis all about – stories and images.”

The John D. Dingell VA Hospital in Detroit saw the value of Miller and Wakeford’s work and commissioned a permanent photographic exhibition of 100 veteran’s stories. “It was incredibly generous of Mr. Miller and Mr. Wakeford to donate these portraits to our medical center,” said Dr. Pamela Reeves, Director of the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit. “We are in the process of hanging each of them in very prominent locations, so all of our Veterans and their families and our staff can enjoy the tremendous stories. We can learn so much from these individuals, and it makes us proud to serve the men and women who have served our nation.” Very soon 70 stories and portraits will be on permanent display at the VA hospital in Detroit. In May 2012 several full Portraits of Serviceexhibits will be on display in and around Normandy, France and at various D-Day locations.

The Light Shines On

Nearly 10,000 baby boomers retire every day and Miller won’t be joining them anytime soon. “At 57 years old I have a mission, a focus, and I hope to live to be 100 with my wife to complete it. That’s my goal. I want to move from helping corporations become profitable to working and creating photographic exhibits and books that address events or uncover atrocities in our global world. Portraits of Service has given us the framework to make this dream a reality.”

His next project with photographer/writer and partner Wakeford is in response to two agencies in India that have asked them to create exhibitions (and eventually a book) of the stories of young girls who have been exploited through human trafficking. “The stories are horrific. This is a story that needs to be told.”

No one can tell that story through light and shadow, better than Rob Miller.