“Grain Belt and Riverboat”
20″ h x 16″ w, manipulated photography (signed) (2012)
Todd Miller is a Minneapolis-based artist specializing in manipulated photography. I first encountered his work hanging on the wall of a local pizzeria in our neighborhood in Minneapolis. While we loved the colors and composition of this photo, we were particularly taken by it because in the background you can see the apartment building we were living in at the time (it’s the orange and blue one).
That same year, we learned this piece won third place in the 2012 American Award Awards (Manipulated Photography–Landscape category).
“First Lutheran in Fog”
16″ h x 20″ w, manipulated photography (signed) (c. 2012)
This was the other Todd Miller print we bought from his exhibition at our neighborhood pizzeria. The image depicts several downtown Minneapolis landmarks, including the First Lutheran Church and Foshay Tower, disappearing into a winter fog. Though having its roots in a photograph, the picture looks almost pencil drawn.
Once as a teenager, I went hiking in the New Hampshire wilderness. Standing at the peak of the mountain, I looked out into a thick fog of impossibly deep white. There was no view to speak of–you looked out over the edge and it was a completely blank canvas. I turned to my friend and said “it’s as if someone stopped drawing the world.” In this picture, too, the buildings’ disappearance feels less like a natural event and more as if they were erased–the world ending at the edges of the drawing.
David Schraub 