Throughout his career, Wayne Miller’s photographs echoed his goal: to “photograph mankind and explain man to man.” Assigned to Edward Steichen’s U. S. Navy Combat Photo Unit, he was one of the first Americans to photograph Hiroshima after it was bombed. A famous photo captures a pilot being pulled from a downed fighter plane. Miller was supposed to be on that plane. The photographer who replaced him died. His resume includes three books and two Guggenheim Fellowships. He was president of Magnum Photos, a freelance photographer for Life Magazine, National Geographic and Ebony, a member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers and co-curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s historic exhibit, “The Family of Man.” After retiring in 1975 he devoted himself to protecting California’s forests. Miller was a photographer at The Daily Illini and Illio yearbook..

This bio was written at the time of Wayne Miller’s inauguration into the 2022 Illini Media Hall of Fame.