He used Kodak Super XX film and did all of his own b&w darkroom work so that he could better control the quality of his prints. Mills appeared in a Good Photography book from 1951, so he was already producing beautiful glamour images at the astonishingly young age of 23 or 24! His work would continue to be featured regularly in those photography books throughout the 1950s and early 60s.įor camera equipment, Mills used a 4x5 Graphic View and a 4x5 Crown Graphic almost exclusively, as he liked the quality from the large negative and it was also more accepted by his commercial clients. The earliest nude study that I saw by David M. From there he went into freelance photography for a three-year period and then finally opened his own studio in Hollywood. After the army, Mills attended the Fred Archer Photography School in Los Angeles for 2 years. He went to the Signal Corps Photography School in Long Island, NY while in the army and became staff photographer for the Second Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington. An account of one of their excursions into the desert, written by Marguerite Empey, can be found here.ĭavid M. Mills initially photographed her in his studio, but they later traveled to many locations in Southern California - on the beach in Malibu, near a beautiful waterfall in the mountains, and in the desert, and many of these photos were published in photography books and magazines throughout the 50s and 60s. Mills' many artistic nudes photographed in beautiful Southern California locations, some of his most well known are of the classic glamour and figure model Marguerite Empey (later known as Diane Webber, after her marriage to Joe Webber).

Three separate editions of Best Photography were published (in 1957, 1959, and 1961) and a portfolio of Mills' work was featured in every edition. By 1957, his outstanding glamour work was being featured alongside the other well known and respected photographers of the day (Peter Gowland, Andre de Dienes, Bruno Bernard, Peter James Samerjan, and Keith Bernard) in the book Best Photography from Trend Books. He sold numerous photographs of models and actresses to magazines and photo digests such as Art and Camera, Art Photography, Good Photography, Candid Photography, Salon Photography and Prize Winning Photography. His studio, called The Picture File, allowed him to be involved with many different types of photography, but one of the many genres in which he excelled was glamour photography. Mills first opened his commercial photography studio in Hollywood in 1953, where he specialized in stock photography. Mills and was able to obtain some additional biographical information from him for this website.ĭavid M. A few of the photographers that I've previously had the pleasure of corresponding with are Peter and Alice Gowland and Bunny Yeager, but I've also recently had the honor of having several email conversations with David M. Mills - It is indeed a rare privilege to be able to communicate directly with some of the great glamour photographers of the 1950s and 60s.

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