The picture lady

Michele Miller has loved photography since she was a kid.

Spurred by the strong emotions she felt after meeting her uncle’s girlfriend, a New York City-based photographer named Franca Lavorato, Miller got a camera when she was in junior high school and living in the community of Fallbrook in northern San Diego County.

“She was exotic, gorgeous, with black hair,” offered Miller of Lavorato, “and I was totally enamored with her and the idea of photography—and I got a camera after that.”

The camera, as it turned out, was the perfect way for Miller—who describes her younger self as “really shy,” though one would be hard-pressed to describe the gregarious, likable 48-year-old with that particular adjective—to interact with her world.

“I saw life through the lens of a camera,” she said. “It was a way of connecting so I didn’t have to talk. ‘Just look at my pictures’—you know, that sort of thing.”

Miller’s long-practiced photographic take on life resulted in the creation of Michele Miller Photography. For the past 10 years, she has been offering her artful photographs—of such things as beaches, bridges, doors, insects and animals—mostly in the form of high-quality handmade photo cards that sell for a modest $5. Her photo-card (and handcrafted-earring) booth is a familiar fixture at the Saturday-morning downtown farmers’ market, and her cards are available locally at the Chico Natural Foods Cooperative, Lyon Books and The Plant Barn.

Miller—who is married to local yoga instructor Rex Stromness—has traveled to such exotic places as Bali, Hawaii, Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán, Thailand, the Cook Islands and Costa Rica, as well around the Western United States and Canada, to get the visually interesting photos for which she is becoming known. Her “Life In and Out of Focus” card series features, among other images, striking close-ups of flowers she has encountered in her travels. One, of a tulip and taken at a distance some photographers might deem too close, is breathtaking in its evocation of the beauty inherent in the flower. Another in the same series, of a bristlecone pine tree perched on extended, twisted roots in Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park, is so vivid as to almost suggest movement on the part of the creature-like tree.

Likewise, photographs in Miller’s “Beautiful Bali,” “Heavenly Hawaii” and “Graphic Guatemala” series zero in on aspects of these locales that the average tourist might not pay studious attention to, such as a beautiful close-up of three pottery bowls, one with lime wedges, one with onion and cilantro, and one with chili powder.

Her new “Burning Man 2012: Fertility 2.0” series features alluring shots of the elaborate, imaginative vehicles and sculptures that populate the desert during the popular annual event, as well as close-ups of such things as just the kelly-green-stockinged legs of a person jumping high in the air above the playa.

Close-ups are one of Miller’s signature photographic moves. Not one for portraits (“I’m really not a people photographer”), Miller prefers “capturing a part of something” and focusing on the texture of it, as she does in her “I’ve Got Your Number” series—close shots of numbers from “1” on up from house-address signs and other places. Her approach is a classic example of becoming successful by making do with what one has: “I don’t have a wide-angle lens,” said Miller, “so I capture a part of [the subject].”

At a recent Saturday farmers’ market, Miller smiled and chatted with locals as they stopped by her booth, some just to say “Good morning!” or “Good to see you!” and others to comb through her turnstiles of cards and even ask advice on what to buy for a particular event or person.

Miller thrives on her role as supplier of affordable, creative images that speak to her customers. “I want people to have them because I make so much—I’m very prolific,” she said, smiling. “I’ve got a lot to share.”