Beautifully Unexpected: Lee Miller

I have decided my blog needs to expand beyond just photos I've taken, so once a week I will introduce a new photographer I like, consider it an educational addition to the blog.

It was hard to narrow it down for the first one but I've chosen Lee Miller. Lee Miller was an amazing woman, she began as a model for Conde Nast before running away to Paris at the age of 22, once there she camped out on Man Ray's doorstep until he agreed to take her on as an apprentice, eventually his lover as well.

She learned from Man Ray, was ingrained in the surrealist movement and grew all the time, eventually ventured out on her own. What impresses me most is that when World War II broke out she became the official war photographer for Vogue. She was one of the few females who traveled through the war zone, she showed what life was like trekking right behind the Allie soldiers at the end of the war, in fact, she and another photographer were staying in Hitler's apartment in Munich when his body was discovered, that is where this photograph was taken by David Scherman, of Lee Miller having a bath in Hitler's bathtub. That's quite a woman who would do that.

Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub in Munich - Photograph by David Scherman

Through her whole life Miller stuck by her passion, she was constantly learning and pushing herself, in such a man's world she stood with the best of them. Below are a few of my favourite photographs of hers. For more you can see Lee Miller, A Life.