The sixth installment of the Ashmolean NOW series, contemporary artist Garry Fabian Miller is invited to create new work inspired by the Ashmolean’s historical collections.

This elegantly designed book features works by pioneering British photographer Garry Fabian Miller (b. 1957, Bristol) in dialog with one of his key artistic influences, Samuel Palmer (1805-81). Since the mid-1980s, Miller has created photographs without a camera to explore the possibilities of light as both medium and subject. Experimenting with photographic materials and exposure time, his photographs feature intensely saturated colors, not seen before in conventional photography. For this book, which accompanies an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Miller has chosen works on paper by Palmer from the Ashmolean’s rarely displayed collections to juxtapose them with his own images. Miller compares Palmer’s pioneering use of materials with his own practice, pushing the limits of photography in the dark room. Edited by Dr Lena Fritsch, this book features high quality images and new texts by Sean Borodale, Fritsch, Alexandra Harris, Colin Harrison, Lydia Heeley, and Marina Warner.