LAKEWOOD TOWNSHIP — Elizabeth Miller says she first became interested in photography as a teenager in the early 1970s when her parents bought themselves a fancy Minolta camera.

“They couldn’t figure out how to use it, so I learned it for them. … And I loved it,” said Miller, whose friends call her Beth. “I got pretty good at it back then.”

But Miller said she put her creative self on hold when her dad suffered a stroke and she became his primary caregiver.

“I quit doing everything I did that was creative or artistic — photography, music, knitting — and just focused on my dad,” said Miller. “I quit it all. I was done at 27.”

That was in 1987. Her father, Curtis Miller, died, and Beth Miller continued with a 34-year career as a fourth-grade science teacher, 24 of those years at Lakewood Elementary School just outside Duluth.

Flash-forward to 2013, and a fellow teacher at the school, Kim Bolf, convinced Miller to pick up a camera again for the first time in 26 years. Now, Miller can’t set it down.

“The DNR (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) had a program that gave us cameras for the students to use as part of our outdoor classroom, the nature trail, and Kim saw something I photographed at school,” Miller recalled. “She kept on my case to get back into photography and, eventually, I did it.”

For the past decade, Miller, now 64, has plunged into nature and landscape photography head-first, especially after retiring from teaching in 2017. It took her a while to refocus her brain behind a viewfinder and adjust to digital photography after having learned Round 1 with film. But she hasn’t missed a beat.

Miller grew up in Duluth, graduated from Duluth East in 1977 and then earned her teaching degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a master’s degree from St. Scholastica.

The born and bred Northlander remains in awe of Lake Superior, the magnet that has kept her in place. She now lives in Duluth Township, within a stone’s throw of the North Shore.

Recently divorced, Miller says she has ample time to wander the backwoods and back roads of Northeastern Minnesota looking for special places to take special photos. But her favorite places are often close to home: Stoney Point along Lake Superior, the Superior National Forest and the nature trail around a beaver pond at the school where she taught for so long.

“I’ve taken so many neat photos along this trail,” Miller noted as she walked over a boardwalk by the school. “We had a pair of green herons nesting here that were so much fun to watch and photograph.”

Miller still volunteers (including teaching knitting classes) and is a substitute teacher. And the kids still call her Ms. Miller. “They inspire me,’’ she said of the students.

Kim Bolf said her longtime friend and classroom teaching partner has a combination of intelligence, talent and patience in the field that allows Miller to see things others don’t.

“We’ll both be looking at the same branch on the same tree and she sees a bird or an owl on the branch and comes back with this fantastic picture, and I never even saw what she was looking at,” said Bolf, also a photographer and also now retired from teaching.

Bolf said she pushed for years to get Miller back into photography, finally convincing her to buy a friend’s used Nikon equipment at a bargain price.

“She always talked about it (photography) in a kind of sad way. But you could see she still had a passion for it,” Bolf said. “She finally ran out of excuses. … And when she finally bought that camera, she just started smiling. And she hasn’t stopped yet.”

Miller is a budding birder and has captured stunning images of sandhill cranes, hummingbirds and songbirds. She has a knack for wildflower photography but will also quickly pan over to catch fox kits at play or a pine marten in a tree. She’s also not religious about shooting only nature photos while outdoors and will photograph Lake Superior surfers and ships, too.

“Certain things just grab my eye,” Miller said, referring to a photo taken at sunset down a seemingly endless railroad track that is one of her more eye-catching images. (The photo was taken along the North Shore Scenic Railroad near her home.)

It’s Lake Superior’s ever-changing moods that Miller says makes the big lake her favorite subject to photograph.

“Lake Superior has been in my blood since I was a little girl. It runs deep in my family,” Miller said. “When the big storms hit and everyone heads up to Tettegouche to shoot those big, dramatic waves, you can usually find me at Stoney Point.”

The waves usually aren’t as big there, and there is a less dramatic conflict between wave and land to capture with the lens. But Miller has found that the waves at Stoney Point are as beautiful as anywhere.

“I love to photograph the waves as they go by and the spray coming off the tops of the waves. I can’t get enough of those big storms,” she said. “I often photograph things that other people don’t even notice, and, to be honest, those don’t really sell as well as the stuff everyone recognizes.”

Lately, however, the aurora borealis has captured much of Miller’s attention. She keeps a close eye on websites and Facebook pages that predict when eruptions on the sun might send an aurora over the Northland, and she either heads out close to home or, if it’s really predicted to be a special display, drives up into the Superior National Forest to find more darkness and better vistas.

“People think I’m crazy to be driving those back roads at night in the middle of nowhere by myself,” Miller said. “But I’ve never felt unsafe when I’m up in the woods like that. The wolves aren’t going to bother me.”

Miller says she’s lucky enough to be able to check the aurora from her driveway to decide whether it’s worth going out for a long night outdoors.

“I know a place close to home, right on the shore, that actually has a true northern exposure. I won’t tell you where it is, but it’s a great spot to shoot northern lights,” she said.

While she says she still has much to learn about night sky photography, Miller offers a few tips for novices: Go to where it’s dark, of course, always use a tripod (and a remote shutter release if you can get one, she even has one for her cellphone camera), and over-expose the photo more than you would think.

“It’s easier to dial back exposure in post-production than it is to try to add in what you don’t have,” she said.

Miller calls her budding second-career business Spruce Court Photography, after a road near her home.

“I don’t really go out to take photos to sell to people. I take the photos that I like, to be honest,” Miller said. “I don’t think of this as a business, and I’m not really good at the business part of it.”

Outdoor photography, Miller said, “keeps me sane,” adding that her photos are her way of communicating what she believes in, what she sees in the world as truth, like the value of nature and unspoiled places. “I try to use my photography as a way to educate people.”

“It’s my passion. I don’t have to make money at it,” Miller added. “But if other people enjoy what I’ve photographed, then why not?”

Elizabeth Miller operates Spruce Court Photography. You can find and buy her images at
sprucecourt.myportfolio.com

and

facebook.com/sprucecourtphotography

.