Intimations: Intuitions beyond Subject

―Bronze Medal Winner, Fine-Art Book Category, 2022 Tokyo International Foto Awards
―Bronze Medal Winner, Fine-Art Book Category, 2022 Budapest International Foto Awards
―Bronze Medal Winner, Fine-Art Book Category, 2022 PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Paris\nIntimations is a visual ode to the strange workings of the human mind. Mystery and foreboding wind through the book like the serpentine image on the book's dust jacket. The result of fifty years of wrestling with how the mind perceives the implacable world in which it finds itself, the book comprises a collection of eight selected photographic portfolios. Each portfolio is introduced by a short essay expressing the motivation behind the images. The early work, entitled "Resonances," establishes the dominant thread that binds the portfolios into a rich tapestry of ideas and imagery. Through selective composition and tonal remappings, Miller strives to capture significance apart from the literal meanings of the object before his lens. He likens the process of significance recognition to the experience of déjà vu, a flash of awareness, of meaning pointing beyond subject, of resonance with the unconscious mind. It is not without precedent. Alfred Stieglitz called it "equivalence." Edward Weston called it "the flame of recognition—relating obvious reality to the esoteric." For Clarence John Laughlin it was "transcendence of the object."\nThe book begins with early work of nature-inspired subjects, passes through a fantastical series of symmetrical, or near symmetrical, landscapes aptly named "Phantasms" to an imaginative sequence of "Asteroids" threatening the continuance of life on earth. On then, to the down-to-earth, apocalyptic artifacts of the Cold War, which could well have ended civilization as we know it, in a portfolio titled "The Dark Side." From there through a dramatic series of composite images of giant gear wheels, serving as surprising metaphors for military regimentation—the only portfolio that is expressed in color. Continuing the thread of menace is the chilling "Pestilence" portfolio of deadly pathogens, including that causing COVID-19—all digitally derived from microscopic studies by the CDC. Next, an intensely personal portfolio, "Portals and Passages" portrays the labyrinthine 19th-century forts along the Gulf of Mexico coastline as metaphors for life's unexpected challenges. Lastly, an extraordinary portfolio of composite images is presented with the intriguing title of "Contending Realities" that blends modern weapons of war with neolithic stone carvings. The irrational beliefs lurking in the minds of individuals responsible for the design of these sophisticated war machines contend uneasily with the rational technological mindsets required to create them. Together, the essay and images of this last portfolio make a fitting finale to an eerily disquieting, stunningly creative, thought-provoking, and beautiful body of work. Here is an exceptional contribution to photographic art, created through the contemplative discipline imposed by large-format cameras and reproduced using an advanced stochastic half-toning process that preserves amazing detail and tonal subtleties.\nFor more books by Martin Miller, click on the blue author link under the title above.