Sandro Miller

Born in 1958 in Elgin, Illinois, Sandro Miller is an American photographer (working professionally as "Sandro") known for his expressive images and his close work with actor John Malkovich and the other ensemble members of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Sandro is married to multi-media artist Claude-Aline Nazaire and is the father of two children, Nathan and Natalia.

As a young teen, Sandro embraced the idea of making photographic portraits after seeing the portrait imagery of Irving Penn. He began photographing in Chicago at the age of sixteen and has since devoted his thirty-plus-years career to creating expressive images from his elegant Ukrainian Village studio.

With numerous award-winning commercial campaigns to his credit, Sandro is one of today's most respected commercial and fine art photographers. He has photographed many national advertising campaigns for a long alphabetical list of clients including: Adidas, Allstate Insurance, American Express, Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Champion, Coca-Cola, Dove, Gatorade, Honda, Milk, Microsoft, Miller/Coors, Motorola, Nike, Nikon, Pepsi, Pony, UPS, and the US Army.

In 2001 Sandro was invited by the Cuban government to photograph that country's greatest national treasure – its athletes. This project was the first US‑Cuban collaboration since the diplomatic and trade embargo was imposed in 1960. Sandro's editorial work has been featured in Communication Arts, Details, Esquire, ESPN Magazine, Eyemazing, Forbes, GQ, Graphis, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Russian Esquire, Stern, TIME Magazine, Vibe, Wired and has been exhibited worldwide.

Sandro has a working relationship with the camera giant Nikon and is responsible for introducing their latest technology to the professional photographic world. He has worked on many award-winning projects with Nikon: a portrait session with actor John Malkovich in Croatia; a series of motorcycles racing in Brainerd, Minnesota; a still and video shoot of the roller derby team The Windy City Rollers; a video of the world-renowned high-wire artist Philippe Petit; and most recently, a short cinematic video entitled "Joy Ride”, featuring a motorcyclist racing through the early morning streets of Chicago on a mysterious mission.

Throughout his career, Sandro has contributed his talents and staffed studio time to community-based and national charitable organizations by creating compelling campaigns that solicit contributions for such organizations as the AIDS Chicago, AIDS New Jersey, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Arts for Life, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Milwaukee, Dance for Life, Evans Life Foundation, Food Depository of Chicago, The Good City, Marwen Foundation, The Maestro Cares Foundation and Off The Street Club.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, in July 2011, Sandro was presented a Saatchi & Saatchi Best New Director Award for his short video "Butterflies" featuring John Malkovich.

Sandro traveled to Morocco in November 2013 and shot portraits of two hundred thirty tradesmen, nomadic people, snake charmers, fossil diggers, and Gnawa musicians. In 2014 Sandro re-created forty-one hallowed photographs in homage to the world’s greatest photographers. The project, titled Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters, has a costumed John Malkovich as the subject in each image.

On November 2, 2014, in New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Lucie Foundation honored Sandro with the International Photographer of the Year award for his achievements in photography.

On October 27, 2015, for the 2nd year in a row, Sandro was honored with the Lucie Foundation’s International Photographer of the Year award for his photography of the Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters images.

For the past five years, in juried competitions within the industry, Sandro has been voted one of the top 200 advertising photographers in the world.

Source: www.sandrofilm.com

Sandro Miller: Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters

By Sandro Miller

Publisher : Publisher : Skira

2020 | 144 pages

John Malkovich appears as some of photography’s most famous subjects in 41 recreations of iconic portraits.

Hollywood legend John Malkovich may seem like an unlikely choice for an artist’s muse, but American photographer Sandro Miller declares him “a photographer’s dream.” Miller (born 1958) has been finding inspiration in the Academy Award-nominated actor since the two first met in 1999. In their latest collaboration, Miller pays homage to the great photographers of past and present, with Malkovich as his sole model, in their recreations of 41 iconic portraits. The project is a testament to both Miller’s skill as a photographer and Malkovich’s chameleon-esque acting ability.

With months of research in addition to accurate costumes and makeup application, Miller’s recreations are delightfully exact in their lighting and editing, while Malkovich seems to easily inhabit the original subjects no matter who he is meant to portray. He appears as the titular migrant mother in Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era portrait, as a bewigged Andy Warhol cast in crimson, and as both sisters in Diane Arbus’ infamous Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, matching with himself in a wide-collared dress and lace stockings. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Miller manages to breathe new life into some of the world’s most recognizable images in this playful take on the history of photography's intersection with pop culture.

Malkovich Sessions

By Sandro Miller

Publisher : Publisher : G Editions LLC

2016 | 268 pages

Over the course of seventeen years, award-winning photographer Sandro Miller and inimitable actor John Malkovich combined their larger-than-life personas and talents to produce a series of portraits and films, most notably those that reconstruct the most iconic images in photographic history, in their Homage series. Others in the collection here capture the genius and range of Malkovich's acting ability in distinctive portraits as well as in film works. For lovers of the arts, photography, and John Malkovich, this book is indispensable.

The first section of the book, Portraits, includes Malkovich in a variety of costumes and characters, ranging from playful to serious; while the second section, Homage, is devoted to recreating some of the most iconic portraits of all time: the artworks that originally inspired Miller to become a photographer. Here are representations of the likes of Annie Leibowitz's image of Yoko Ono and John Lennon; Bert Stern's photographs of Marilyn Monroe, and Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother." At first glance, it is difficult to tell that the subject in the photograph is in fact Malkovich, emphasizing the unique nature of Malkovich's formidable acting ability and Miller's talent for perfectly creating the lighting, environment and demeanor of the original photographs.

Finally, the third section of the book contains photographs from experimental films created by the artists in tandem. As one of pop culture's most cultish personalities, Malkovich's fluid ability as an actor perfectly complements Miller's talents as a photographer and director. Rarely is an art book published that exhibits so gorgeously and extravagantly the talents of two extraordinary individuals working in collaboration over such a long period of time, that also provides so much delight to those who are not cognoscenti, but merely aficionados of great and distinctive work.