Issue #7889: Blaze

“I expect to some people opening the magazine, my pictures might look a bit like they’ve come from Mars,” chuckles Garry Fabian Miller, whose cameraless process distils photography to its purest essence. The artist, who is featured in our November issue, now available in the BJP shop, or delivered to you through 1854 Access, has spent a lifetime exploring light and colour, responding to the natural environment where he lives and works in Dartmoor.

Miller translates his observations into the purest photographic forms, working without a camera and transcribing light directly onto photo-sensitive paper. Now that he’s down to the last 100 sheets of his beloved Cibachrome, which was taken out of production in 2011, he intends to “go out in a blaze of light”. We went to meet him at his studio and darkroom in Devon, before it is dismantled and reassembled at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Tom Wood takes the seat in this month’s Any Answers, recalling early days in rural Ireland, and his deliberate absence of method. Elsewhere in the Agenda section, we preview this month’s essential exhibitions and book releases, including the upcoming Dora Maar retrospective opening at Tate Modern this November.

Like our cover photographer, colour is important to Lina Iris Viktor, whose gilded subjects are encased within a limited palette of cobalt blue, rich red and deep, dark hues. We catch up with the British-Liberian artist ahead of her first major UK solo exhibition, now showing at Autograph,London, to discuss the enduring allure of gold, and how she is using her unorthodox pathway into art to her benefit: “I didn’t know the rules, so I didn’t know there were any rules to break.”

Our November issue marks the end of our Class of 2019 series: a selection of the best of this year’s photography graduates from the UK and Ireland.

Elsewhere, we meet Edgar Martins to talk about his latest project that contemplates the emotional impact of incarceration on prisoners and their families. “All the imagery that we associate with prisons works to legitimise a certain idea that we have about incarceration,” Martins declares. “So, I thought, ‘How do I overcome this’?” The results are as much an enquiry into photographic representation as they are about prison.

In this month’s Creative Brief we meet Maxine Leonard, editor-in-chief of Beauty Papers. Plus Damien Demolder discovers the unlimited potential for making cinematic-quality video using the Panasonic S1H. We also spotlight Lucia Moholy – a pioneer of Bauhaus whose legacy as a photographer, teacher, and writer is often overshadowed by her decade-long partnership with László Moholy-Nagy.

1854 Full Access members receive each issue with a unique collectable cover every month, and 1854 Digital Access members can read the magazine ad-free on tablet and iPad.

Marigold Warner

Deputy Editor

Marigold Warner worked as an editor at BJP between 2018 and 2023. She studied English Literature and History of Art at the University of Leeds, followed by an MA in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London. Her work has been published by titles including the Telegraph Magazine, Huck, Elephant, Gal-dem, The Face, Disegno, and the Architects Journal.