When Nicolas Miller moved to New York City several years ago, he was inspired to start his creative journey. Intrigued by the metropolis and all it had to offer, he picked up an old DSLR and began exploring the streets. From there, he’s never looked back. Propelled forward by the inspiring street photographers he viewed online, his love for the craft has only deepened over time. Today, he’s amassed a healthy following on Instagram, where he publishes his neo-noir New York street photography.

In love with capturing the moment and inspired by cinema, Miller’s work is a dark and moody look at the city. Through his lens, solitary figures strut down foggy streets. Neon signs and the headlights of a subway car provide soft illumination so that we can make out this vision of the urban landscape.

These elements make Miller’s work a love letter to New York City, but one tinged with loneliness. In his creative world, the city is filled with individuals who perhaps come together as a couple, but never en masse. This solitary view is understandable when one imagines that Miller began heavily investing in his photography during the pandemic—perhaps one of the most solitary times for individuals in recent history.

We had the opportunity to speak with Miller about his work and what drives him. We cover everything from the films that influence him to his most memorable photo. Read on for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview.

What sparked your love for photography?

Moving to New York City back in 2018 sparked my love for photography. I was fascinated by the city and would often spend hours walking to enjoy it and discover new places. I had an old entry-level DSLR and I started taking it on my walks and shooting more and more. Around the end of 2018, I decided to install Instagram to check out the work of photographers capturing the city and I was blown away by the work of some people. That’s when I decided to learn photography more in-depth. I got much deeper into photography in 2020 when it became an escape for me during the pandemic. I was shooting almost every day at some point during that year.

Your work is very cinematic. Were you influenced by film and, if so, how and what films in particular?

Movies are definitely a main source of inspiration for me. I love every movie taking place in the gritty New York of the ’70s and ’80s. Among my all-time classics are Taxi Driver, The French Connection, and, more recently, Joker. I’m a huge fan of the neo-noir movie genre, and this is the type of atmosphere I try to convey in my pictures. A lot of the themes of this genre can be found in my photography—loneliness, alienation, paranoia, blurry line between dream and reality. The cinematography of both Blade Runner movies also had a huge influence on my editing and color grading.

What’s your working process for your street photography? Do you go out with a plan or just let the action unfold?

It really depends. I usually start with a plan in mind but often end up going with the flow and walking randomly until I’m too tired to go on. This means I can sometimes go for sessions of more than 10 hours if conditions are good. I also tend to scout locations and come back in conditions I enjoy (fog, golden light, etc). Ultimately, the best photos are usually unplanned, and spending so much time in the city shooting is the way to capture those decisive moments.

What’s your favorite equipment to shoot with?

I have been shooting with the same Sony mirrorless camera since 2019. I dragged it in blizzards, heavy rain, and sand storms and it is still working perfectly, so I’m pretty happy with it. I use mainly prime lenses because of the fast aperture for night shooting. I shoot at 35, 50, and 85mm. I also own an old 35mm film camera that I bought to shoot the West of the U.S. during a trip I did a few years back. I feel a little guilty not using it more often but I’m definitely more into digital photography.

Summer in Brooklyn

What’s the most memorable image you’ve taken? 

Summer in Brooklyn is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken. Water hydrants are often opened during warm summer days for kids to play with water and I noticed on one of my evening walks that the golden light was reflecting on water coming from a hydrant on a street in Brooklyn. This only lasted for a few minutes and I couldn’t get any interesting subject going through the frame. I came back to the same spot for several days when, finally, the man on his bike showed up on the third evening as I was ready to leave. It caught me by surprise and I took the shot without looking at the camera. The result ended up being one of my most iconic shots so I’m glad I put in the effort.

What do you hope that your images convey to the public?

The themes of the neo-noir genre definitely occupy a major place in my photography. I’m not trying to capture reality, I’m more interested in transporting viewers in my own dark fantasy. Photography is, to some extent, a way to escape my daily routine and everyday problems, as I do not think about anything else when I’m shooting. I hope the public can feel the same way when looking at my photos.

See more of Miller’s cinematic New York street photography.

Nicolas Miller: Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Nicolas Miller.

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If you are not responsible for the meaning behind your photographs then who is?

The camera can be many things, but compared to fine arts outside of photography it can be seen as a buffer between the artist and their art. In paintings you can see the difference between hard and soft brushstrokes, in sculpture you can see where the clay has been aggressively twisted or calmly worked. The process behind these arts lends itself to a tactile, directly hands-on manipulation of material where pressing a shutter does not.

This means that even when an artist does not have a direct message for their audience they can at least talk about their intention towards the art itself. For example, a painter who throws art on a canvas may not tell you what the shapes look like to them and leave it for you to figure out, but they can tell you whether they were angry, upset, or dancing when they threw the paint.

The camera as a buffer means that whether the photographer is happy or sad when they make an image may have little effect on the image itself. Unless someone is shaking with rage so as to blur the frame, or making some other active decision, the actual relation between what a photographer is feeling and what their viewer feels when they see the image can be very distant without specific guidance.

Words in language are something of a Rorschach inkblot, open to interpretation. Through convention and collective agreement we shape the shared meaning of words, a non-rigid process that constantly evolves through use. The same is true of visual symbols, although unlike words there is no dictionary to keep track of what those visual symbols mean or imply. The idea of photography as a universal language further complicates this, as even when you may identify some consensus on the meaning of a visual symbol it is not possible to assume that this meaning can be extrapolated across a universal level.

This difficulty to attach even broad meaning to a symbol encourages a mentality where the duty for deriving meaning is placed on the viewer. In these instances even when the photographer has something they want to say with their work it is simpler to present it ambiguously than to put the work into offering a guided understanding.

Why hand the responsibility for deciding what your work means over to anyone else? Is it really that low a priority for you to have the literal authorial voice over the photographs you have authored?

It is not easy to force your meaning into an image if it goes against the flow of popular understanding of those symbols. It is easier to lean into existing archetypes and guide them towards your intended use, but even then you cannot be certain that someone else will accept your definition. For example, using an image of a lamb to imply something other than innocence will take some contextualization to make your use distinct from that cross-cultural connotation. There are literally thousands of years of reinforcement behind the iconography of a lamb, especially from religions, either by way of metaphor or literal sacrifice.

As much as you may want your audience to see something other than this meaning it will not happen purely by your intent, or even the addition of a caption – instead by juxtaposing elements either in the frame itself or in sequence you contrast one idea against another, and somewhat displace the original meaning, supplanting your own. A photograph of something horrific in isolation will not mean beauty until the photographer actively affirms that understanding, through context and portrayal.

I often see attempts to convey complex subject matter in a way that just doesn’t carry that meaning across – much like how in comedy a hilarious joke can be told about a taboo topic, but a different joke may tackle the same topic far less effectively. The difference is in the execution; a mediocre joke not only won’t be funny but can be considered actively disrespectful, whereas with a joke that’s actually funny, you can see that the work has gone into covering all possible ways of misinterpretation.

Cultural differences are where interpretation really plays a role in the photographic depictions of literal differences in ways we manifest our behaviors. A good example of this is the iconography of a common gesture, two hands with palms together – or “Anjali mudra” as it’s commonly referred to in Indian religions. To some this is seen as a form of greeting, to others it may be a sign of prayer. The prayer connotation of the symbol lends itself to the idea of a request, which means it is further associated with begging. So if you have a photograph of hands in this position, without context, what will the meaning be? A greeting? Prayer? Begging?

From this we can see how a photograph with a meaning intended to be about welcoming, or prayer, can be interpreted as about begging – or vice versa. This is where contextualization is absolutely key. If in my example image I had not included the rest of the group and the facial expressions to go with them, it’s possible that the truth of the image (prayer) would have been perceived as something else.

Even when you clearly understand what you are going for in your photograph the execution both in individual frames and in a sequenced body of work is paramount. Elimination of subtext and reinforcement of your intention throughout a project means that you equip your viewer with the tools necessary to take from it exactly what you want the impact to be, rather than leaving it for them to provide.

If you find your viewers are often misinterpreting your photographs, consider how that is happening, which aspects are being seen as meaning something other than what you meant, and figure out how better to offer more in the periphery to prevent that misconstruction.

About the author: Simon King is a London-based photographer and photojournalist, currently working on a number of long-term documentary and street photography projects. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can follow his work through his documentary collective, The New Exit Photography Group, and on Instagram.

Image credits: Photographs by Simon King