ARTS & CULTURE
PSU Student Feature:
Claire Miles by Cicely Blackwell
Claire Miles is the star of this month’s Portland State University student feature. Claire was raised in Portland, getting her start in photography here in the city before taking her passion on volunteer trips. Now she’s an avid travel photographer, as well as a fashion photographer. From speaking with her I found that she has a unique perspective on finding her own artistic roots, and that she has ambitious plans to foster growth within her art community.
CM: My name is Claire Miles and I’m a new student. I actually just transferred, this is my first term. I came from U of O. I just wanted to be in Portland, so I thought I’d come to this school instead.
who like to model, and I have a lot of friends who model.
CB: What kind of photography do you do?
CM: Yeah! So the difference between digital and film is that on the digital you have a screen and you can pull up the photos right away. It takes them and you see it kind of like on your cell phone. Then with the film photos it processes on the film as a negative and then you’ve got to do the whole chemical process to bring it into a photo. It’s not just an automatic computerized motion. And I usually shoot on 35mm film, which is just the standard most people shoot on. So I started with digital. Film is really really new for me but I’m completely smitten. I’m in love with it. But, I started with digital. I started pretty early. I think that I took my first class on photography when I was nine or ten. It was just a little class at a local university offered for kids over the summer. It was just an intro to digital photography. We didn’t really go out and do anything. You took pictures and then brought it into class and talked about it. Then when I was probably twelve or thirteen I took a class where we did go on field trips and take pictures. That was just so much fun. I met a whole bunch of people who also loved to do this thing. And it was just a really good way to network. Then I started doing it myself. My uncle would lend
CM: I dabble. I definitely do a variety of kinds. I started out with a lot of nature. So I love that, that’s kind of where my base is. That’s where I started and it’s one of my favorite things to do. But recently I’ve gotten into more human subject photography and photographing people, and that’s always interesting because you really get to see someone’s personality come through.
THE PACIFIC SENTINEL
CB: What inspired you to move towards photographing people? CM: I did one of my friends’ senior photos and that was really fun. We all drove out to the beach and took his pictures. I’m really into fashion and I’ve been getting into fashion photography, and that’s super fun. CB: Tell me about your fashion photography? CM: I like styling too. So you put together an outfit and a set to go with it. Get a whole scheme going. Then you do photography, and that’s also a place you can do more interesting poses. So, it’s also more interesting for people
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CB: Could you give me an intro on digital and film photography?
me his camera, and I’d go around and take pictures of stuff. Then over the summer my mom and I would take road trips. So we love, I don’t know if you’ve seen the documentary, the docuseries Wild Wild Country? CB: No I have not. CM: It’s about the Rajneesh cult. That was a cult here in Oregon. So, one summer we decided to drive out to see the cult, like where it was, because it’s in Oregon. So we drove out. It was supposed to be near the Oregon desert. There were rusty old trucks, and broken down houses. It was just such a cool place, and it totally sparked my heart again. Then I started just to take pictures of everything. I started traveling and doing travel photography. I went to Peru when I was eighteen and got to see Machu Picchu. Taking pictures there was just incredible. When I was nineteen I went to Fiji, and at that point I had my own camera and I got to take all of these beautiful pictures of this beautiful tropical land. I met this girl there, she’s now a friend of mine, and she had a film camera. She was taking all of these pictures and I was just like “Oh, that’s so cool!” And she was actually from Utah. So, in December 2019 she came to visit me and we drove out to the Oregon coast and we spent a few days hanging out and catching up. She was showing me all the photos from Fiji, these film photos, and I was just like, “This is incredible. I wanna do this.” So I asked my mom, she had this old film camera, and I asked her, you know, “Could I borrow that? Are you gonna use it anymore?” And she’s like, “No, you can just have it!” So, then we went on a family trip to San Francisco in January to visit with my mother’s godparents and my grandmother’s best friends, since one of them she’s known since she was thirteen and she’s now eighty-five. So [Claire laughs] long friendship! So we went to see them, ‘cause they were on a cruise. They like to cruise. They’re British, so we never get to see them because they live all the way across the pond. So, we met them there and I brought the film camera and I had some film and I started taking pictures. Then everything shut down. So, I haven’t really
