Meet Justin Miller

We had the good fortune of connecting with Justin Miller and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Justin, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
My community. Connecting, understanding, and ultimately trusting folks is hard wired into our brains; and to me those are prerequisites to create meaningful content. I’m so grateful I get to connect and collaborate with amazing people, that appreciate me as a person, as well as my creative vision. I’m grateful for the real relationships I have with the people that I collaborate with, not only does it result in better deliverables, it’s also, what I like to call, “the juice of life”.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I like to think of my work as “Post-Narrative”, which is really just fancy way of saying that I like to prioritize experience over information, with information being so much more readily available now than any other time in the human experience; it feels like experience itself is taking a backseat to information.

I’m most excited facilitates a beautiful community in my life. I’m really blessed to have taken a route that was born out of community rather than money because it has allowed me to create real relationships with incredible people. I’ve noticed when you give of yourself to your community, your community will always find ways to look out for you, and I’m just really blessed to have strong community as my foundation. I’m also really excited about collaborating with folks to find creative solutions, particularly through images. I think it comes down to the fact that I’m naturally interested in taking pictures. It’s the one of the most effective and fulfilling ways that I’ve found to interact with the world and people around me.

What I’m most proud of, easily, is a mural of one of my photos on Cleveland Avenue (big love to Mothers Against Gang Violence, who recently moved into the building). My work with community organizers has shown me that, when you collaborate with smart people, with good people (big big love to City Councilman Antonio Lewis) the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. It’s really cool to see your photos become more than just photos.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m not too complicated, if I can spend a week bouncing around thrift stores and book stores, let’s go! Joe’s and Muchcacho for some coffee and a good place to hang. The best wings in town, hands down, are at Jamal’s on MLK so we’re going there. Catch a movie at the Starlight. Grab BBQ from Pitboss down by the airport one night. Go grab dinner outside at Carroll St. Cafe one night. Busybee is a must as well.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
That’s tough, there’s so many. Is it cheating to say my community, again? Specifically, I’m blessed to have an incredibly supportive family. My parents Randy and Susan as well as my brother Demetrius Freeman. My creative brother in arms Brandon Mishawn, not only is he a willing co-conspirator in the off-the-wall motion ideas I often come up with, but he’s a friend that’s been there through thick and then; he’s also partially responsible for me shooting as much documentary photography as I do. I’m so grateful for the people I have in my life, personally, professionally, and creatively; and honestly I’m very lucky that there’s a ton of overlap in those three categories. I’m really lucky, in that, I get to connect and collaborate with amazing people, that I have a great appreciation and respect for, and I can feel their appreciation for me as an individual, both creatively, as well as, me as a person. Like I mentioned earlier, to me the “juice of life” is the cultivation of real relationships with people; I think the fact that it results in authentic, meaningful, and effective creative content is a nice fringe benefit.

Website: www.justinblainemiller.com

Instagram: myhumblestopinion

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSn83XSV-BLOFF9SsdSu60A

Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/myhumblestopinion