MICHAEL MINER / STILL PHOTOGRAPH BIOGRAPHY

In 2002 Michael Miner embarked on a series of studies which chronicle the chaos, beauty and soul of the landscape. Portfolio titles include THE FIRST DAY, THOREAU’S CHILDREN, METAMORPHOSES, TREEBONES, CHAOS THEORY, WHERE LAND AND WATER MEET, THE GATELESS GATES AND OTHER ZEN KOANS and THE BILLBOARD PROJECT.

At the beginning of 2008, Mr. Miner exhibited one-man shows at Anonymous Content in Culver City and A & I Photographic in Hollywood. In 2010 Mr. Miner accepted an Artist-in-Residence Grant from the National Park Service and spent the month of January at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, capturing images and lecturing on photography. He was also invited to spend four days at the United Nations World Heritage site called Chaco Canyon, where he captured images of 1000 year old ruins.

In the Fall of 2010 and 2011, Mr. Miner exhibited a one-man show at The Brewery Artwalk. At the end of 2010, the Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado exhibited five of Mr. Miner’s images in a “Best of...” exhibit. In 2010 and 2013, Mr. Miner received MERIT AWARDS from Black and White Magazine, which published six of his images in two Portfolio Edition issues. In 2011, 2013 and 2014, the prestigious Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California selected a series of Miner’s images for its Juried Exhibitions and in 2014 the Santa Barbara Museum of Art acquired one of the GATELESS GATE series for its permanent collection. Mr. Miner recently received his second Artist-in-Residence Grant from the National Park Service, spending a month in the fall of 2014 at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Mr. Miner’s landscape photographs grace many private collections, and most recently he began striking prints with dimensions of 4 X 5 feet. This work is achieved exploiting the resolution of the large format negatives.

Coinciding with his love for photography, Mr. Miner is also an accomplished screenwriter, cinematographer and teacher. Mr. Miner received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Theater, and a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Theater, Film and Television Department of the University of California, Los Angeles. While there he wrote and directed LABYRINTHS, which won a Focus and Cine Eagle Award, ALIAS JANE DOE, which was exhibited at the Deauville and Bilbao film festivals, and COSMOGRAPHIA, which was exhibited at Filmex. While at UCLA he was also a cinematographer of ten student films including the feature film SCARRED, which was exhibited commercially and FOOL'S DANCE, which was financed and produced by KCET Los Angeles.

Mr. Miner's professional career includes time as a director of photography and director/cameraman of ten music videos. As co-writer of ROBOCOP, the successful action story about the part man/part machine law enforcer of the future, Mr. Miner received the SATURN AWARD for Best Science Fiction Screenplay and a nomination for Best Screenplay by the Mystery Writers of America. Mr. Miner also shares co-writing credit on the 2014 remake of ROBOCOP as well as being co-writer of the pilot for ROBOCOP: THE TELEVISION SHOW, produced by Sky TV. He is also the screewriter of ANACONDAS: SEARCH FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID, the action adventure sequel about humans battling deadly snakes, and LAWNMOWERMAN II, the science fiction sequel to the virtual reality story about an idiot savant trapped in a computer program. Mr. Miner made his debut as a writer/director with DEADLY WEAPON, a drama about a teenager who finds a prototype Star Wars weapon and uses it to take a desert town hostage. Most recently, he directed THE BOOK OF STARS, magic realism about the troubled relationship between two sisters and the memory book one of them keeps that has the power to anticipate future events. Mr. Miner discovered the script while teaching a writing class at the Maine Photographic Workshops.

Mr. Miner has written screenplays for Oliver Stone, Sylvester Stallone and Michael Douglas. He is currently developing a television series about the dystopian aspects of digital information and is adapting Philip K. Dick’s classic science fiction novel, THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH, for the screen. He has taught screenwriting at the Maine Photographic Workshops, the University of Hawaii, the Southeastern Media Institute, the Praxis Center for Screenwriting, the University of California at Santa Barbara and California State University at Los Angeles.
For the last eight years, in association with a non-profit organization called INSIDEOUT WRITERS, Mr. Miner has taught self-expression to incarcerated juveniles in the Central Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles.

Mr. Miner exhibits his black and white large format landscapes at Photography West Gallery in Carmel, California, and has exhibited at the G-2 Gallery in Venice, California.

http://www.photographywest.com/pages/MichaelMiner-OriginalPhotographs.html

http://www.theg2gallery.com/exhibits/nature_la_michael_miner/index.html

www.michaelminerphotography.com

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