To say that photographer Earl Miller has done it all might somehow imply that the artist is ready to ride off into the sunset. But the truth is that after 30-plus years photographing beautiful women Miller is as excited about his craft today as ever, and by utilizing the potency of the Internet via EarlMiller.com, he is pushing his creativity and business prospects to new heights.
Perhaps best known for his work with Penthouse, Miller has indeed done it all, but now, with the same vim and vigor as when he first began his illustrious career, it feels very much like he's just getting started.
The Net
Miller jumped aboard the Internet train five years ago with EarlMiller.com, a strategy aimed at re-branding his portfolio for a consumer culture that was gravitating to the Web for much of its entertainment.
Indeed a sea change was underway in the publishing industry, specifically the adult sector. The invasion of hardcore/softcore Websites and "laddie mags" like Maxim began slicing up a seemingly-impenetrable market dominated by the likes of Playboy and Penthouse, offering male readers a new brand of entertainment, one featuring brazen humor, nonexistent editorializing, and, of course, scantily clad women.
"What made the Web grow is, in fact, what has made the magazines shrink," says Miller. "The Web is no longer the peripheral part of the business, it's now the primary."
Miller understood this shift in popular culture. He recognized the new "Generation Net" as shaping the future of entertainment and technology.
The Internet represents swiftness to Miller, the chance to give the people what they desire just as fast as their Web connection will allow.
"I think what really excites me most about the Internet, is this instant give and take - the instant feedback you get from your viewers," says Miller. "You put something up on your site and five minutes later someone can e-mail you and say 'I love this' or 'I hate it,' so you have instant communication with people who are interested in your work."
He adds, "I think that's been the biggest thing for someone who considers himself an artist in this business... to have that communication. "
Miller knew a move to the Internet would not only attract a wider audience (and a younger demographic unfamiliar with his work, though excited to see pictures of beautiful women) but also prompt new business opportunities.
"The Internet makes your library worth so much," says Miller, "and it incredibly elevates the value of your photo library because you have unique content for your Website that no one has - unless they steal it, which people do, and we bust them whenever we can."
Yet most important, it seems, Miller understands the Internet allows him a creative freedom otherwise unattainable in the confines of the print publishing world.
"The Internet is the greatest liberator of creative expression in human history," says Miller. "It gives the artist the opportunity to communicate directly to anyone in the world who cares to check out his work, without an editor or publisher interfering with the connection."
His official Website houses thousands of photo images and presents videos of adult stars in action, amateur beauties, behind-the-scenes footage, detailed search functions, exclusive compilations of his most famous Penthouse work, centerfolds, news, and an affiliate program for Webmasters.
"There's enough stuff on the site," says Miller, "to keep a guy happy for a long time."
The site also boasts content plugins from Wicked.com, Flirt 4 Free, Video Team, Ken Marcus, Jennamax, Red Door, Afro-Centric, Before They Were Porn Stars, Penthouse Forum, and Private Channel.
"All my work is exclusive, but the extra stuff," says Miller, "is like frosting on the cake for someone who joins the site."
According to Miller, his site boasts a 1:200 conversion ratio, a strong indicator that the prized daily updates (six days a week) and exclusive content is a major draw for consumers and Webmasters. A hosted gallery of TGPs is forthcoming and Miller plans to direct more video vignettes for the site.
"Some of my competitors offer video as a separate site with a separate membership fee, but all my video is included," Miller says proudly. "So you can say it's free because the video is part of the package."
Though Miller is involved in the site's daily operation, only recently did he take an active participation in all the aspects of the Web.
"I didn't consider it something I could just start splitting my time in further, and now I know I have to... and so now I'm working seven days a week."
Penthouse
When they write the definitive book on Bob Guccione and the Penthouse empire, a chapter undoubtedly will be reserved for Miller, a friend and collaborator of Guccione's for 30-plus years. It was Guccione's racy publication that sparked Miller's interest in the adult game.
An actor turned photographer whose career started as the staff photographer on The Sonny and Cher Show, Miller balanced his adult-themed photography with a mainstream career, notably ad campaigns for Miller Lite, Hilton International, and Bugle Boy, and shooting noteworthy celebrities.
But it was in the erotica genre that Miller truly established himself as a world-renowned photographer.
"Miller has not only mastered but transcended his medium," Bob Guccione wrote in a statement. "He creates images that would not exist without the subtle intrusion of his own heart and mind. They are not merely images of beautiful women tastefully propped and posed, but of unique, sexual beings with a life and environment of their own creation."
Because Penthouse burst onto the scene just as the sexual revolution was stirring, Miller not only found his photographic calling at the right time, but also found the perfect vehicle for which to exhibit his gift.
"It was such an exciting time... it was mercurial," says Miller, who noted his best friends dubbed him the Che Guevara of the sexual revolution. "It was an explosive time from about '72 to '82, and what I was able to do was - and that's what I loved most about my connection to Guccione - his allowing me to be myself and create my own thing. Rather than imposing something on me, he just gave me the opportunity."
Miller recalled a Christmas card he once sent to Guccione. It read: "Thanks for giving me a sandbox to play in."
Style
Is there a definitive "Earl Miller style?" After 30 years at the forefront of the erotica movement, the answer is yes. And though sexy, flamboyant photography is a method favored by many artists, Miller's deft blend of sensuality and glamour is a style all his own, inspiring a cadre of would-be photographers a long the way.
"For the first 20 years of my career I always described myself as an erotic artist," says Miller. "I just always had this sense that what I did wasn't typical men's magazines clich�s. And it was because I had the opportunity through my creative connection with Bob Guccione where he let me loose to do whatever I wanted.
"I was able to create many first-of-a-kind, one-of-kind layouts that really set a lot of trends in the business, that I would do something and it would influence the next five years of men's magazine imagery."
But in the late 1990s, print layouts started to give way to computer interfaces as Internet erotica exploded, offering as much content as a mouse could click. And though Miller still shoots for the monthlies, the Web is a primary focus.
Which raises an interesting query: Has shooting for the Web affected Miller's work, either positively or negatively. "People keep kicking my butt to shoot quicker and more stuff in a day to have more content for the Website," says Miller, "but the one thing I cannot do is compromise what is my eye and my sense of perfection."
Miller says he still shoots with film and incorporates his usual glamour lighting. "I haven't changed how I shoot to adapt to the Internet, but I feel I am bringing the same quality that readers and viewers expect of me through whatever fame I was able to achieve through magazine publication," says Miller. "I think people that come to EarlMiller.com expect an aesthetic level, a sexy level, a quality level, a standard of the girls I shoot, so I still haven't been dragged kicking and screaming into compromising that level."
Now much like the sagacious artist, imbued with decades of knowledge, Miller speaks eloquently of a photograph's composition, where the image meets the subtext. He believes a single photograph must exist on two levels: one that induces an immediate 'gut impact," and the other as an artistic aesthetic, having merit to stand alone as a piece of art and not simply a piece of titillation.
"It's almost like Gulliver's Travels," Miller says about a photograph's existence, "little kids can regard it as a child's tale, but it's also a vicious, biting satire on the human condition." This principle was/is an objective Miller strives to reach every time he picks up a camera.
With changing times, especially in the '90s when sexually-explicit imagery began overpowering the industry to the point of ubiquity, Miller tweaked his style accordingly, with the Web providing a springboard for new ideas.
"To be adventurous with the sexuality you shoot is liberating in one sense, but you still have to do it with the same high standards of production and aesthetics," says Miller, a self-described perfectionist. "Hot sex can still also be aesthetically pleasing, and in fact it must, and it's not like one is exclusively mutual from the other."
An example of this loosening of the sexual reigns occurred in the early '90s when Miller shot the first hardcore boy/girl layout seen in Penthouse. "It was a way for Guccione to take a chance," says Miller. "He always said 'One of these days I will be able to show something and that piece really broke the ice.' And now everything has become hardcore."
As pornography, in its truest sense, hit the big time, Miller still had to get used to the idiom as an all-encompassing label for his work.
"I've accepted the fact that pornography is okay," he says. "It was a word that I didn't like for most of my career and would get pissed off if someone suggested that's what I did."
Miller adds lightheartedly, "And now instead of calling myself an erotic artist I call myself an artistic pornographer."
Great Expectations
The future of EarlMiller.com is aligned with the photographer himself. As Miller navigates a new era of adult entertainment, his official Website shall indeed continue to be the vessel in which he travels. He is dedicated to building the site into something more than a Web portfolio. He foresees a media entity that embodies the best of dazzling content and progressive technology.
"Sex is a good, healthy thing," says Miller. "I don't know where it's written that human sexuality is not a valid means for creative expression."
And that is precisely the importance of Miller the artist. He has brought the glamour of sexuality to readers everywhere, and provided a visual chronicle to the sexual revolution.
With the growth of the Internet, Miller has tapped into a new uprising, one with reach far greater than any periodical.
"I'm so fortunate to have chosen this profession," says Miller. "I hope I die with my boots on, I want to keep shooting 'til I can't walk. Because I can't imagine retiring."
