ME - my name is matt miller.....
i am a father, a husband, and a photographer. i take pictures because i never want to forget. there is so much beauty in the world and sometimes we all need to be reminded of that. i walked around this earth for a while with no direction or idea of what i wanted to be "when i grew up". i knew i wanted to be involved in something that made people happy. i never exc
elled in school and i put off a lot of responsibility and instead found my world in the punk / hardcore scene and spent every spare moment on my skateboard. at the time i didn't realize it, but i was building a network of free thinking and creative friendships that spanned the entire globe. there was something so special about what we all were doing. we put on our own concerts, built our own skateparks, put out our own records, shared our life's stories through making and designing our own publications and making our own art, we carved out a unique and beautiful movement. i learned about so many things that were never taught at the schools i attended and never talked about on the news. it was and still is something so sacred and important. my beliefs in straight edge and my vegan lifestyle are 100% accredited to the music, the message, and the people who stood out to make a difference and do something against the grain. now, with my photography, i want to be a part of the celebration of our lives. i'm drawn to the realness and honesty of a wedding ceremony, the energy and joy from a reception, the moments i get to spend alone with a couple capturing their portraits to share with them just how amazing they truly are together. i still love to meet with bands and create a visual representation of their art. i want to show them what it is to see them create something that transports their listeners out of their lives for a night. my imagery is a craft i don't take with a grain of salt. it means everything to me. i want the pictures i take for you to have the same effect as when i see the images of my daughter smiling for the first time, or when i hear "lovesong" by the Cure and i recall the first dance at my wedding with my wife danielle. the are memories worth saving and i want them to be epic. let me tell your story. WEDDINGS -
Your wedding. It’s YOURS. Your laughter, your lives, your love – these are what matter. What lingers, what stays, what you’ll hold onto forever – besides each other – are the moments and the memories of the days and nights that you’ve poured yourselves into, that you meticulously craft for months, imagining and inventing, scheming and dreaming. And Then it happens all at once. Plans and schedules collide with the calendar, the date arrives and there is no way to delay. A marathon march ends in a mad dash, a last second safety pin saves the day, a surprise foghorn blast gets the biggest laugh of the night. And, for a few hours, that lightning that you have captured in a bottle – you get to share it. Around goes the bottle, passed between family and friends. Everyone takes a pull. The whole world goes electric. Tonight, everything glows. That’s what I look for: I capture what you create. Bring on the black clouds and blizzards. Make sure someone knows when you need a whip stitch or a Windsor knot. The needle, the necktie, and the nervous laughter – that’s your wedding. These images, these instances, they tell the real story. They tell your story. I translate it. I’ve been shooting weddings for almost a decade. The last thing I want to document is something static. We all know the expected poses and the everyday positions. Truthfully, a wedding is panic. It is manic. It is magic. There are thousands of threads all twining together and I live to trace each one as they overlap and interlace, weaving together something unforgettable and unique – recording your celebration of the creation of a new, beautiful shared world. music -
I've been listening to punk rock for as long as I can remember. In sixth grade a kid in my class brought his skateboard to school and written in white-out across his grip tape was the name "S*x Pistols". I asked him about it and he reached in his pocket and handed me a cassette tape of 7 seconds "the crew". He said I probably wouldn't like it, but check it out any way. My life took on a new path after one listen. It started me on a road with my band Most Precious Blood that brought me from Melbourne, Australia to Cape Town, South Africa all the way to Moscow, Russia to Sao Paulo, Brazil and all over Europe over 5 times. This music has shaped me into the person I am today and I would hate to think of who I would be without its impact. When I first picked up a camera and decided to make pictures, the first thing i thought of was skateboarding and hardcore shows. There is so much angst and passion behind it and felt it needed to be documented. There were so many people doing the same style of shooting that I felt I needed to try something different. That's when I brought my lighting gear out to the shows and made something I'd never seen before. I attempted to freeze the exact moment that brings chills up my spine, the moments like the one when i first heard the verse "young till i die". This is my attempt to give back a little bit of what this movement has given me.
