Dallas Through a Lost Lens, 1939-1954

My father, Connell R. Miller Sr. (1918-1954), was a noted Dallas, Texas, photographer whose camera captured everything from the aftermath of a tornado to the zany antics of the Dallas Bonehead Club. Dad’s interest in and dedication to photography began shortly after he graduated from high school and travelled to Berlin for the 1936 Olympic Games. Bringing home a large number of unprocessed rolls of film, he set up a small darkroom where he soon became proficient in the developing and printing process. He had adopted his trademark, large format Speed Graphic press-type camera by 1939, preferring the sharp enlargements the 4x5 negatives would give him over those images taken on small 35mm film. He would have been successful solely shooting weddings, sports, or even pets, but street photography was his passion, and his domain was the world around him—the city and its people with their activities in a simpler, less hurried time.