Peter Read Miller to speak in Los Angeles on June 23, 2005

Contents:

Contests:

Newsletter:

Members:

About Us:

Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features.

|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2005-06-15

Peter Read Miller to speak in Los Angeles on June 23, 2005
By Brad Mangin, SportsShooter.com

Photo by Peter Read Miller / Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated staff photographer and SportsShooter.com member Peter Read Miller will be speaking in Los Angeles at 7pm on Thursday night, June 23, 2005 at the Pacific Design Center. This is a special event hosted by the Advertising Photographers of America, Los Angeles and The Julia Dean Photo Workshops.

Miller has enjoyed shooting for SI On Campus recently because of the fun and creative covers he has been able to produce for the weekly magazine aimed at college kids across the country. One of his favorite cover shoots that he will be taking about occurred earlier this year when the assignment was to photograph USC star running back Reggie Bush. "We shot this cover of Reggie in February right before the Academy Awards. It was our intention to make Reggie look like an Oscar. None of this is Photoshopped. We had the base built and the sword made. We did the shoot at Smashbox studios in Culver City," Miller said. Miller's stylist Perry Veganes painted Reggie gold, using the technique she had mastered while painting all of the Olympic athletes Miller shot for the 2000 Sydney Olympic issue for Sports Illustrated. Miller's assistant Max Morse put together a short film documenting the entire shoot that will be shown at this event. "It's a pretty good look behind the scenes of a big photo shoot," Miller said.

"I will be showing a wide cross section of my work, including a lot of the advertising work that I have shot over the years," Miller added while talking about the upcoming event. "I believe in supporting a group like APA because they provide some wonderful services for photographers. I've been a member of APA since the early 1980's when they started in Los Angeles," Miller continued.

Most people know that Peter Read Miller has been shooting action pictures for Sports Illustrated and other editorial clients for the past 30 years and has over 90 SI covers to his credit in his career, but many people don't know that Miller has also done many advertising jobs in his career for such clients as Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Kodak, Canon, Visa, Nissan, Panasonic and Ing.

Some of the more recent ad work Miller has worked on has been for Canon. He recently shot a print campaign for the new Canon Rebel XT. To shoot this job (with a Canon digital camera) Miller photographed youth football in Los Angeles. Before that he shot another print ad (with a Canon Mark IIDs) for Canon at the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida in February of 2005 showcasing all of the white lenses that are on the sidelines for pro football's biggest game.

Miller shoots all digital for his advertising work nowadays. "I like it and I hate it for advertising," says Miller. "After completing two recent shoots for Canon I thought we would be wrapping it up right away, but the client wanted proof sheets. It was a nightmare. We had assistants working three straight 14-hour days making contact sheets. It would never take that long doing the jobs on film," Miller added.

"It is wonderful having the immediate feedback with digital. We could show the client images immediately on site. It allows a lot of people to sleep a lot better at night, but it also means someone is up at 3am drinking Mountain Dew working on the computer," Miller concluded.

Miller feels that the quality with digital these days can't be beat. "Quality wise it is amazing and wonderful. Anything that is going to appear in a printed magazine or brochure looks great. In the world I work in of magazines or print ads there is no question that there is no loss of quality between digital and film," says Miller.

Miller enjoys the unique challenges involved with shooting sports-related subjects for advertising clients. "The uniqueness of shooting models for sports advertising is very difficult. It is a difficult issue doing the casting for many of these shoots. Swimmers are the toughest. It is very hard to find a model who looks like a competitive swimmer," Miller said.

Another challenge Miler must deal with is art directors. "You are working with a different group of people in advertising. In some ways you have less freedom than you do when you work for a magazine and some ways you have more. Most of the time you are working with an art director who has a concept you need to illustrate. Having a high production budget and the freedom and ability to do whatever it takes to get a shot is a big part of the fun in shooting advertising," Miller added while finalizing a conversation about the APA event he will be speaking at on June 23.

This special event is part of The Canon Explorers of Light Lecture Series. This concept came out of Canon USA in the mid-1990's as a broad-ranging initiative of photographic education and inspiration. Currently this group is comprised of 60 of the most influential photographers in the world. Because of this lecture series many students and professionals are able to participate in educational programs throughout the United States at affordable rates that might otherwise be too expensive to attend.

DETAILS:
Thursday night, June 23rd, 2005 at Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose, LA 90069
Doors open at 7pm

EVENT COST:
$25 General Admission
$15 off to APA members and The Julia Dean Photo Workshops students with membership ID
$5 off to ASMP members
FREE to all those who sign up for APA membership

For more information:
Advertising Photographers of America, Los Angeles
LA office: (323) 933-1631

Related Links:

Miller's member page

APA / Los Angeles

Canon Explorers of Light