Greg Miller – “Unusual views of Hoboken from above”

April 28 - June 9

Greg Miller’s career in publishing, spanning 46 years, started summers during his college years when he reported for the Westwood News. For the first eight years after graduating from college, he averaged 3,500 photos a year for the newspaper, processing negatives in his personal darkroom. Working for the Bergen Record as a reporter he carried his cameras along on assignments, capturing a variety of subject matter over the years.

For the past 31 years, he has worked in print production for Thomson Reuters as his print division morphed from Prentice-Hall, Macmillan, and the Research Institute of America. His expertise is short run print on demand publishing. In 2015, his office moved from Lower Broadway, Manhattan, to River Street, Hoboken.

As a photographer, his subjects were more suburban than urban cityscape. “I remember a portfolio course I took at the New School in the ’70s. I was the lone guy from the Burbs. All the other student portfolios had the requisite city photos like cracked pavements, silhouettes of iron-rail fire escapes, long shadows of alleys and doorways, and brownstone stoops.

“My portfolio contained strictly suburban images from the Pascack Valley—actual grass and trees. They were shocked there was another type of life out there,” Miller says.

Working in Hoboken provided an opportunity to see Hoboken with fresh eyes. Hoboken teems with photogenic subject matter. Miller has had an abundance of local subject matter for his photography but, after a short time, he began looking up.

“I wondered what Hoboken would look like from the tops of some of the iconic buildings and began to ask people to allow me access to some unique places, like the bell tower of Saints Peter and Paul Church on Hudson Street.”

“Hoboken From Above” is an exhibition attempting to show Hoboken cityscapes from the tops of different venues within the city and some nearby locations in Jersey City, shot from vantage points residents don’t normally frequent.

Meet the photographer at a free opening reception for his Upper Gallery exhibit from 2 – 5 pm on April 28. The exhibit will be on view through June 9. 

The exhibit is supported by a block grant from the State/County Partnership program for the Arts, administered by the Hudson County Division of Cultural and Heritage Affairs.