Meeting with Earl Miller

I met with Earl Miller today. Earl is aristocracy in the pretty girl shooter/glamour photography biz. Duke of Earl, anyone?

It wasn't a social call. Earl and I had some biz-a-ness to discuss. He asked me to come by to talk about some future stuff we might do.

Earl Miller, if you didn't know, is Penthouse magazine's most published photographer. If a model is a high-end glam-chick, there's a good chance she's strutted her stuff in front of Earl's camera.

I'd never met Earl before. He's a cool guy. A bit intense at first but then he warms up once--at least, this was my take on it--he decides someone has a clue what they're talking about. (Which I'm sometimes pretty good at faking and convincing others that I do.)

Of course, the JimmyD charm is always a big plus.

Earl's base of operations is his home. And a nice house it is! I'm guessing it's approx. 4,000 square feet. Earl's crib is tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac in the Northwest corner of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. He's built a spacious office behind the house. His office walls are decorated with many of the Penthouse covers that he's shot-- blown up to poster-size and, some of them, autographed by the model on the cover. The outside of the office--you enter it from the rear of the house--is bordered by EM's meticulously landscaped backyard complete with a sparkling pool, waterfalls, and lots of trees, bushes, and foliage providing near-total privacy. The inside of the house is where Earl also does a lot of his shooting. He told me the walls throughout his home are either repainted or recovered with stylish treatments on a regular basis. That way, it provides interior locations that are always fresh and new. His 3-car garage is filled with props and set-pieces. He told me he decided to work out of his spacious, upscale home some years ago after he and his wife parted.

To paraphrase the late, great, Pittsburgh Pirates, ball player, Roberto Clemente: Glamour photography has been very, very good to Earl.

Although I wasn't visiting with Earl to pick his brain or glean some glam photography tips, I picked it a bit nonetheless. I asked hinm about the current Penthouse magazine now that it's no longer owned by Bob "The Gooch" Guccione. Earl tells me he's shooting for the new owners and they have big plans for Penthouse. Somewhere else during the conversation, we got to talking about lighting. Earl's big on kickers and highlights and I'll admit I've been influenced by Earl's work. Earl prefers to gel the kickers. I asked what color gels he likes to use: "Bastard Amber?" I ventured. Nope. Earl thinks BA is too orange. He prefers Roscoe's "straw" and gels closer to that in color. According to Earl, he's most captivated by a model's face. Sure, a great body is requisite for great glamour shots, but it's the model's face that draws Earl in.

Well, there's my Earl Miller mini-report. I didn't go there to talk shop or gather Earl's thoughts so I could write them up here, on the blog. I went there to talk business. But I figured some of you, like me, might be admirers of Earl's work and so I was a little determined to get into Earl's head a bit... as it pertains to glamour photography.

The pretty girl pics posted with this blog entry are of Nautica. The first two images of Nautica I shot a month ago or so. The next two images of this beauty I captured more than two years ago. Once again, time flies. But, as you can see, time's been very, very good to Ms. Nautica... Just like shooting models (like her) has been very, very good to Earl Miller.