Bob Miller is a photographer based in Canberra, Australia.
Dr. Bob Miller is an Australian photographer and photographic educator with a specialisation in archaeological photography and is a leading expert in digital photography. His research interests include the history of archaeological photography and current practice. Bob’s doctoral thesis (Photo-excess: Two paradigms of archaeological photography) investigates the impact of digital photography on archaeology. The thesis explores the theme that digital photography adds significantly greater and superior forms of information through immediacy, excess and greater research potential compared with the analogue film model.
He has always had a passion for photography and has used his image making in such far ranging areas as commercial photography, press, sport. Working over the last 28 years with universities from Australia, UK and Poland Bob had photographed on sites and in museums in Australia, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. His assignments take him primarily to the Eastern Mediterranean region on sites ranging from Neolithic and Bronze Age, through Iron and Classical Greco-Roman ages to Byzantine and Medieval periods. As a specialist photographer his skills are evident in site photography under, at times, extreme conditions of dust and heat. From both makeshift studios in the field to museums his work includes all kinds of materials from highly glazed ceramics, pottery, glass, metals, stone, bone in scale from the microscopic to statuesque.
Bob originally trained as an artist printmaker and sculptor and throughout his career he has maintained his personal image making alongside the more commercial ventures. He describes working with photography as a sculptor, seeing the three dimensions and how it is translated into the two dimensions of the photograph, and seeing photography in terms of 'sculpting with light.' He has a string of State and National Awards for his photography, and his work is included in a number of collections including The BHP Collection, the University of Canberra and the National Library of Australia, where his documentary photography is extensively represented.
Combining traditional and digital technologies is one of the challenges facing images makers, and embracing the new processes and providing education based on sound principles of both design and technology have been a hallmark of Bob's photography and teaching.
Bob can usually be found cycling, sailing or in the outback of Australia when not working and has a strong connection with the outdoors.