by Gerald Boerner
Tom Millea, a leading practitioner of platinum printing in the darkroom, has produced a body of work that is truly art. He has shunned the traditional roles of the photographer as photojournalist, documentarian, fashion photographer, etc., for the role of artist with light. His works are incredible in their capture of tonalities in his prints; these prints can stand up to most classic artwork in other media. GLB
“His platinum-palladium prints demand full participation from the viewer, and they repay this attention a hundredfold.”
— Gallery Observer
“Collectors tend to become confused when I do anything outside platinum, so the color prints I make are just for myself.”
— Tom Millea
“It’s a complicated subject. My work and views have changed drastically over the years.”
— Tom Millea
“I have called myself a hermit because I’ve mostly lived alone in my life. I didn’t want it that way; it just turned out that way. I am not terribly social but I’m not antisocial either.”
— Tom Millea
“I have devoted 40 years of my life to art and hope what I have learned and accomplished are worthy of the people viewing the images.”
— Tom Millea
“Look at the photographs, and feel what you must. Recently several people have said my photographs are a marriage of vision and craft, and that the final image goes beyond seeing and into poetry. It’s up to others to decide what is true for them.”
— Tom Millea
“It [a trip to France for a project] was a great gift, a commission, to photograph one woman for two solid weeks. It was a unique experience to have that amount of time to work with one person. We explored many facets of her personality, and I was able to make photographs unlike I had done before.”
— Tom Millea
“There is a substantive difference between silver, platinum and palladium prints. Platinum is a generic term for both. The major difference is that platinum is rather blue and palladium prints are a warmer brown. Silver prints deal with surface. They look at me but do not try to enter me-saying, ‘Stay away and look.’ Platinum prints invite the viewer to enter the picture space and delve below the surface.”
— Tom Millea
“All of my work is done as an artist. Some women do not like the moody images I make of them, and I became tired of people being unhappy with my work and decided to make portraits for myself and galleries only. In 40 years I have done only three commissions, but that was enough to teach me that making photographs for other people was not for me. I do love to photograph women, and I have only recently begun to photograph men.”
— Tom Millea
“My work is about life and death, how we live and die. How death follows us and allows life to be lived fully because death is always present, palatable, always seeking to embrace, if not take. To go to the edge is always terrifying. To be embraced by angels is as terrifying as seeing one’s own death. But Lorca’s obsession with death is not something negative. It is a cry for life and love. We live to love, to connect with others and share the highest forces… of art… everything. The only truth in an image is the truth the artist brings to it.”
— Tom Millea
“After my association with Paul, I was director of photography at a photographic workshop in Connecticut, but I had no following as a photographer. I left that job to move to Carmel, CA, because I heard it was a photographic art center and a small beautiful town. I was completely out of money, but I stayed because Carmel was an incredibly active place at the time.”
— Tom Millea
“No one told me what to do, they just gave me a movie camera and sent me out into the world. I made a film of a farm with cattle waving their tails to classical music, and a film of single framed pages of books to test viewer’s attention to subliminal information. During this time I realized I wanted to be a still photographer. Pictures I could hang and study had more power for me.”
— Tom Millea
“In college I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I had no idea in what discipline. I tried drama, writing, painting, sculpture and the lot. I really wanted to be on stage, but the faculty at Western Connecticut State University discouraged me. After leaving the English department, the professor saw a photograph I did and sent me to another professor who happened to be a friend of Paul Strand’s. He looked at my photographs, encouraged me, and I began working at camera stores and anywhere I could learn. One camera store customer who saw my photographs on display happened to be Paul Caponigro, and I ended up studying with him from 1967 to 1973 when I moved to California.”
— Tom Millea
Note:
This blog makes every attempt to comply with the legal rights of copyright holders.This posting is intended for the educational use of photographers and photography students and complies with the “educational fair use” provisions of copyright law. For readers who might wish to reuse some of these images should check out their compliance with copyright limitations that might apply to that use.
GLB
Tom Millea
Most photographers are known because of their placement of images in publications, magazines, and/or galleries. They tend to be very public people who explore the world around them for appropriate photo opportunities. Tom Millea is not one of these photographers!
Millea tends to be a very private person who creates much of his work in his studio. He did receive early recognition for his series on the Carmel coast (where he lives) and Death Valley. While successful, these experiences were outside of his “comfort zone.” Likewise, he had “unpleasant” experiences with several early commissions and generally declined to accept these assignments throughout most of his career.
He is a expert practitioner of the darkroom techniques of platinum and palladium printing. He has taught classes using these techniques, for which he has achieved much acclaim. With the increased difficulty in obtaining the materials and chemistry for these processes has led Millea to migrate to digital photography and high-end digital printing. He is now producing printed output that approximates the tonalities generally only obtained in the traditional darkroom.
Published Overview of Tom Millea and His Work
ArtWorks Magazine has made the following observations about Millea’s photography practices:
Tom Millea has always lived on the edge: on the fringe of society, close to the imaginary line between genius and a darker place, and always re-defining the boundaries of his own art. His photographs, especially those of women, are hauntingly beautiful. They draw the viewer in slowly, sensually, almost hypnotically. It is a tempting offer but one that the viewer knows, instinctively, will come with a price. The world of Tom Millea is not always a happy-go- lucky place. To understand the artist and his art requires an investment in time, intelligence and trust that it all comes with payoff. It does, but it takes an emotional commitment…
When it comes to photography, Millea doesn’t like words like “capture” or “take,” he thinks they are too aggressive. He sees photography in a different light. It’s all about creating magic, and the magic for him comes from what he calls the “dance of creation.” The dance consists of three parts: the photographer, the camera and the subject. “When all work in harmony and balance, each contributes an aspect, which is essential to the finished image,” Millea explains, “When the dance is performed in its purest form the photographer and the subject are transformed into something beyond what either could have imagine beforehand.”
Millea’s first major body of work was the Carmel Valley Series, but it was his two years spent in Death Valley that put him on the photography world’s radar screen. Millea says he went to Death Valley to test himself and his ability to photograph—nothing. The 800 images created during this period (1980-1982) turned Millea into a rising star, but he didn’t like the heat and soon dropped out and returned to creating in solitude. Millea has always worked in sets (several photographs meant to be seen together) and series; The Carmel Valley Series, The Death Valley Series, Fallen Roses, an unusual landscape series and The Jennifer Desmond Series, an edgy, urban look at kids on the edge, are just a few of Millea’s photographic collections. Although there are many individual photographs in between, the series add parameters to Millea’s body of work and are worthy indicators of the man and his mindset along the way. His latest is The Sue Lauwers Series. Millea calls it a portrait of a relationship. A relationship that continues to have a profound impact on Millea’s work…
Millea spends just about every penny he makes on his photographs. He is well known around the world, and sells fairly consistently off his website, but he is neither rich nor famous. He loves the Central Coast but may soon leave because of the high cost of living. Although his work is in close to 30 well-respected museums, including the Getty Museum in Southern California, MOMA in New York and The National Gallery of American Art at the Smithsonian, he has a hard time finding galleries to take his work. He says most gallery owners don’t see value in what he does but perhaps the real reason for his difficult relationship with galleries is more complicated. His work is provocative and always pushes the envelope…
Photo.Box, in its reporting on the style of Millea’s work, observes:
The making of both types, platinum and palladium, is a contact-printing process. Hand-coated paper is dried, placed in a printing frame with the negative, and exposed to sunlight. After a period of time, often hours, the paper is developed in a potassium oxalate bath and then cleared in three separate acid baths where all the ferrous materials wash out and leave only platinum and palladium. After washing, these prints are the longest lasting of any photographic process…
Tom realized he was in the right milieu. He was acquainted with Minor White, Wynn Bullock, Edward Steichen and Ansel Adams. He had met them and others in photography when he directed The Underground Gallery in New York City…
Occasionally major photographers showed up including André Kertész, Garry Winogrand, Ralph Gibson, Lee Witkin (the famous photography dealer), John Szarkowski (then photography curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art) and many more. Through a mélange of visual and verbal experiences, Tom became the creator of images that inspire wonder and slow exploration…
Many of the images you see on Tom’s web site are haunting. Such as ethereal landscapes, portraits of women who may seem detached, and sensual nudes, all in glowing black and white…
Tom’s nude images show particularly intriguing drama. His sense of design, posing and lighting involve viewer emotions. They are beautiful nudes but completely opposite of what you see in Playboy. He sculpts women, often on black backgrounds, with visual plasticity like a modern Rodin…
“Is a powerful statement of duende. Federico García Lorca spoke about duende along with Edward Hirsch in his terrific book, The Demon and the Angel. This I discovered when I downloaded a detailed essay on the duende by García Lorca. Separately I found duende (a term that comes from southern Spain) described as ‘inspiration, magic, fire, a ghost, a demon, a spirit, charm and magnetism.’ I also read that duende ‘is a power and not a behavior; it is a struggle and not a concept.’ ”
Millea’s transition to digital techniques is dealt with in the January/February issue of Photo Techniques Magazine. They observe:
Tom has been teaching workshops across the country for years, sharing his expertise on the subject of quality platinum printing with all who are eager to learn. However, the portfolio and accompanying article in the upcoming issue explore Millea’s latest photographic ventures, sans platinum.
When the specific chemistry, papers and film that he had used for decades were discontinued one by one, Millea made a firm decision to stand up for his artistic ambitions and explore new avenues. In addition to his initial unfamiliarity with digital processes, Millea also had to deal with the scrutiny of fellow film photographers who saw little or no value in the digital translation of the medium…
Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:
Tom Millea Web Site…
http://www.tommillea.com/index.html
Photo Techniques Magazine: Tom Millea…
http://www.phototechforum.com/index.php/2009/10/29/tom-milleas-transition-to-digital/
photo.box.sk: Tom Millea…
http://photo.box.sk/about.php3?id=262
ArtWorks Magazine, A Voice for the Arts: Tom Millea…
http://artworksmagazine.com/2005/02/tom-millea-out-of-the-shadows/
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