Last month’s post delved into Jim’s early career as a fine art photographer working in the design and architecture arenas. Here, we conclude the interview with a discussion of his career as an educator, which began in Denver in 1959.
In 2017, the organization he helped found—the Colorado Photographic Arts Center—awarded Jim its annual Hal Gould Award in recognition of his significant contributions to the regional photo community. Soon after, his extensive collection of rare photo books was accepted into the University of Denver Special Collections. As of March 2022, he continues to work with his archive, specifically preparing a monograph of his graveyard images.
RJ: Jim, what led to you branching out into photo education?
JM: I started teaching non-credit photography in 1959. I’d been shooting since I was a little kid, and all through high school and college, and I photographed for architects and artists in Ohio and shot brochures and reports for the Foundation. I used Otto Roach’s darkroom [in Denver] for a while. He was a good guy. He was doing commercial work and he let me use his darkroom.
Eventually, CU Denver saw my work and asked me if I’d teach creative photography in what they called Continuing University Studies at the University of Colorado at Denver. I taught it twice a year from 1959 to 1985. Some topics included subject matter, photographic vision, camera techniques, manipulations, light, and each week I would give a lecture on a particular assignment—say lighting: direct light, diffused light, edge light, side light, back light.
Images taken by Jim Milmoe in public restrooms. Installation at the Arvada Center, 2017. Photo by Rupert Jenkins.
In 1969 I was hired as an honorarium professor of photography. I started out with a morning class in the first year and second year, then added an independent study in the afternoon, and we would sit around and talk. It was all based on Bauhaus teaching. It basically came out of the book by Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion.
RJ: Why did you choose that and not, say, an Ansel Adams book with an American kind of approach?
JM: Well, it was more related to the way I would see. I illustrated all my lectures with my own photographs, of course. I wasn’t shooting in the sense of Adams, which was primarily manipulated black-and-white. Those first classes primarily used color slides. Later, I developed a following among the younger students and they said, “Why don’t you teach a History of Photography class for credit?” I did! No one was teaching photography at college level as a fine art, so I became the first photographer in Colorado to teach photography in a fine art department at the college level.
In spite of the very low salary at UC Denver I chose to continue at the honorarium level. The joy of that was that I only had to teach one day a week, all day, morning to night, with no meetings [laughs]. That appealed to me. I had all week to work to pay the bills. I was able to schedule annual reports during the summer, and I could do commercial work for advertising agencies, architects, museums, etc.
Untitled abstract, ca. 1960
I was teaching at UC Denver and I got a call from a friend of mine who had just started as head of the art department at Metro State in Denver. He said “we got on a grant from the government and we have all this photo equipment and no-one to teach it. Classes start next week. Would you come and save us?” So, I taught at Metro for two years. Then I did a summer workshop at Center of the Eye in Aspen—that was a very prestigious operation. A lot of top-notch photographers went through there. In the summer of 1972 I was a visiting professor of art at the University of California in Berkeley, then I taught a block at Colorado College in 1974, and that’s where Eric [Paddock, curator of photography at DAM] took my class. Altogether I taught at fifteen various workshops.
In 1978 I got an MFA degree in photography and printmaking at DU [University of Denver] and I did my thesis on cemeteries—I photographed markers in over 300 cemeteries around the world (above). In those days they weren’t giving a straight degree in photography so I had to get both. I taught there myself four or five years while I was getting my degree. I was the first one to teach out there. (1)
Center of the Eye class taught by Arnold Gassan, Aspen, 1968/9. Arnold Gassan collection, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.
RJ: Can you tell me about teaching at Center of the Eye?
JM: Cherie Hiser was in charge of that operation. How did I meet her? I was in Aspen. I had a gallery show, and a show in the tent [at the Aspen Institute] and I think she saw my work there and asked me to be a teacher for the summer.
RJ: Did you teach for Al Weber’s Victor School, near Colorado Springs?
JM: No, I photographed up there but I didn’t teach there. I taught five workshops in Telluride, for the Autumn Eye.
Later I went up to Carmel where Brett lived and I wanted to see original prints by Edward. Before he died he had his sons print his best 100 negatives—it was under his direction but they weren’t anything like his original Weston prints. The paper was different, he was burning and dodging himself, and the quality—there was no comparison.
So I went up to see Brett and he was awesome. I said, “Brett, I’d really like to see some of your dad’s original photographs” and he said, “That’s no problem.” He took me outside [to a] building and his father’s prints were inside these refrigerators. Ansel had had a fire and the firemen came in and hosed down his collection of work, destroyed prints and negatives. And Brett said, “That’s not going to happen to me.” I thought that was a clever way to store your prints.
You could just sink into the depths of the values of these prints, it was just unbelievable. Real high silver content paper, beautifully printed, it was just beyond belief. And he said, “Jim, I’ve got to leave you, I have to go the airport to pick up somebody” and he took off and left me with a million dollars’ worth of Weston prints! I couldn’t even afford to buy one, and he takes off and leaves me with this collection of Weston prints. That was quite an event in my life.
End
1) “Cemeteries as a Source of Photographic Imagery”: A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences, University of Denver [in] Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts [by] James Oliver Milmoe, June 1978. John B. Norman Jr. [Professor in Charge of Thesis].
As discussed last month, in 1989 the Denver Art Museum presented Shadows of Life: James Milmoe Photographs, a collection of over sixty graveyard images found throughout Colorado and the world. Exhibition curator Diane Vanderlip considered it to be “one of the most important bodies of work ever produced by a Colorado photographer.”
Collection of books Jim Milmoe containing articles about his work. Installation at the Arvada Center, 2017. Photo by Rupert Jenkins.
[Note: Soon after we finished our interview I sent Jim a transcript and he added this addendum in response to a question I had about the introduction of digital imaging.]
In over seventy years there have been three major changes in photography—Polaroid, Digital Cameras, and the iPhone. Each of these has affected me and I’m sure all photographers.
POLAROID—instant gratification contributed to the acceptance of the Polaroid products. The 4 x 5 55PN film was all I used for black and white photography. I never developed ‘sheet’ film. Unfortunately, 55PN is no longer available.
DIGITAL—The digital camera was first released c. 1986, after I quit teaching in 1974. I had a problem adapting to digital photography; however, I did get an early Nikon when they first came out. Then a Pentax DSLR and later in 2009 an improved Pentax K7. The instant gratification won me over. Since then I picked up point-and-shoot cameras, a Canon and a Lumix. A few of the advantages of digital cameras, film is expensive to buy and process, massive storage space is required for storage of photos, editing and processing are easy using photo-editing software. Instantaneous gratification contributed to making film cameras more or less obsolete, most cameras became doorstops. Fortunately, there are still a number of photographers clinging to the old methods. Availability of color film, black and white film, and the paper and chemicals have become very difficult and limiting. One of the best survivors in Denver is Gifford Ewing, whose black and white landscape work defies alternative techniques and digital imagery.
iPHONE—The next major change was the introduction of the iPhone X. Now I am shooting every day and have over 13,000 images. I have enlarged [many] to 11 x 14, which I have exhibited. There are pros and cons. The ease of producing iPhone images gives amateurs the idea that professional Photographers are not needed. The Pros [are] that amateurs are looking at the world around them: nature, people, pets, etc. If I had a dollar for every sunset photograph I would be rich.
Edited for length and clarity April–May 2020, from personal interviews conducted 1/23/17, 8/29/18, and 9/21/18.
All images courtesy of James O. Milmoe unless otherwise noted.
The Colorado Photo History blog is the online presence for “Outside Influence,” a book project by Rupert Jenkins. As always, please leave a comment or a suggestion for future posts, and visit #Colorado Photo History on Instagram and Facebook.
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