Peter Miller, the photographer and writer who documented a passing way of life in rural Vermont through intimate black and white portraits of its people, died on Monday. He was 89.
His death, confirmed by his longtime friend Rob Hunter, followed a hospitalization for pneumonia.
Even Vermonters who don’t recognize Miller by name will likely recognize his work. He’s best known for a series of self-published coffee-table books that featured portraits of and essays about older Vermonters — often farmers — who embodied the rugged authenticity that first made him fall in love with the state upon arriving here in the 1940s as a teenager.
Among his most iconic images are the 1959 portrait of Will and Rowena Austin, a retired farm couple from Weston; and the 1997 portrait of Fred Tuttle, a Tunbridge dairy farmer and U.S. Senate candidate.
An avid outdoorsman, Miller also had an affinity for landscape photography. Until his health began to fail him recently, he could often be found chasing sunsets across the countryside. “It isn’t photography that I like so much,” he said during one of a few interviews with Seven Days in the months before his death. “What I do like is beauty.”
Miller received his first camera as a gift from his mother, who bought it with insurance money the family received after someone stole some guns Miller owned. As a student at the University of Toronto, he met famous portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh and traveled to Europe as his assistant, helping out on photo shoots of notable figures including Pablo Picasso, Albert Camus and John Steinbeck.
Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating college and spent two years working as a Signal Corps photographer in Paris, roaming the streets with his camera. He then wrote for Life magazine in the late 1950s before returning to Vermont to raise his children.
In the late 1980s, Miller sought to compile his three decades of Vermont images into a book that would tell the story of a changing culture. He pitched it to roughly a dozen publishers — and struck out with each.
Undeterred, Miller refinanced his house in Waterbury and used the money to self-publish Vermont People, an acclaimed book that sold over 15,000 copies. He went on to self-publish six other books, the most recent of which, Vanishing Vermonters: Loss of a Rural Culture, was released in 2017.
His work would earn him notable acclaim. In 2006, he was named the Burlington Free Press Vermonter of the Year. And in 2013, former senator Patrick Leahy read a tribute to Miller on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
“His resiliency is remarkable and his uncanny ability to display the beauty of Vermont in a way words cannot do justice serves as an inspiration for photographers everywhere,” Leahy said in his speech.
The self-publishing route allowed Miller to produce his books with meticulous care, which is perhaps why the quality of his volumes rival those put out by large publishers. His works can often be found at small-town bookshops and general stores.
But the do-it-yourself approach had its downsides — primarily, financial. Though his writing and photography sales once brought in up to $85,000 annually, Miller’s income had plummeted in recent years, making it harder and harder for him to get by in an increasingly expensive state. Last year, he sold his longtime home in Waterbury and moved into an apartment at a senior facility in Stowe. At the time of his death, he was cataloging his work with the hope of selling his portfolio.
A self-described curmudgeon, Miller could indeed come off rough to new acquaintances. Hunter, for instance, recalled meeting him for the first time while working as the executive director of the Frog Hollow Vermont Craft Gallery. “He came in, and he’s like, ‘So you gonna buy my books?'” Hunter said with a laugh.
But Miller’s gruff exterior quickly gave way to a warmth and kindness that friends say stemmed from his deep curiosity about people and their stories.
“All those people he photographed, a lot of them were long-term investments that he would make: going out, talking to them, getting to know who they are,” said Hunter, a documentary filmmaker. “That, I think, made for a better end product.”
Hunter grew close with Miller over the years and once even spent dozens of hours following him around while producing a documentary film series about some of Frog Hollow’s artists. The two had fallen out of touch during the pandemic but recently reconnected, with Hunter visiting Miller numerous times before his death.
After learning of Miller’s passing, Hunter searched his own computer for the raw footage he shot of his friend and sat down to watch.
“I will miss him tremendously,” Hunter said.
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