Husband and Father First, Award Winning Photographer, Mountain Rescue Volunteer and Musician Second
By Lisa Morgan
Beloved actor, artist, poet and comic, Red Skelton once said, “There is time to do everything you want to do, if you just DO IT.” This is the same approach that Chris Miller has been taking to his very full and picturesque life. He is passionate and active in many things, as is reflected in his work ethic, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that his greatest loves are his 3 incredibly photogenic children, and his wife who is as beautiful as she is sweet. Happily married for 11 years, Miller says, “Getting married was the best thing that I ever did. And having kids was the funnest thing I ever did. My wife and kids…they are the reason I push myself, both on the job and in the gym.”
Apparently, Miller is more than a man of words. His wife attests to that: “Chris is an amazing husband, and the most wonderful dad to our children that I could have ever hoped for,” shares Miller’s wife Bridget. “He truly loves this life that we have created together, even when it’s crazy! Everything he does, he does for us. He has the best ability to stay positive, not sweat the small stuff, and remind me of what’s really important. He seriously finds joy in simple things, like going to the grocery store with all 3 kids in tow. I know through actions, not through words, that he loves us with his whole heart. We have been together for 15 years, and it truly has been the best years of my life. I am so proud of him and his amazing skill and talent that he has turned into an awesome business. But I am most proud of the husband and father he has become. I am a lucky girl.”
Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, raised in Pamp, Texas, Miller earned his business degree at Cal State San Marcos. Miller’s first job was as a lifeguard, perhaps where he first began to discover an innate desire to help others in distress. Today, he is a volunteer member of the Riverside County Search and Rescue Team.
Miller was working in IT, and did photography as a hobby, when a friend starting a wedding planning business asked if he would photograph a wedding. “I said, ‘Hell no,’” shared Miller. “She said they would pay me $800. I said, ‘Hell yes.’” Ultimately, he landed the job as house photographer for The Show at Agua Caliente. “It simply doesn’t get any better than being paid to photograph music and musicians, and there’s no better venue in the valley than The Show,” says Miller. In 2014, he was voted “Best Photographer” by CV Weekly readers.
But Miller will be the first to tell you that his life wasn’t always a pretty picture. “One of the first things people ask me, when they meet me, is how I ended up here in the desert,” Miller shared. “I tell them, ‘By way of the Betty Ford Center.’ I was 26 years old, and had been through 3 or 4 different colleges. I was running away from my problems, but as it turns out, I was the problem. I came to Betty Ford and discovered recovery, and it saved my life.”
Miller volunteers to photograph charity events every chance he gets. “I can’t afford to contribute dollars to charity, so I contribute time. I most recently volunteered for the Patrick Warburton, ‘Golf For Kids’ Charity event.”
While stupid drivers and narrow minded “party politics” (on either side of the coin) piss him off, Miller says his inspiration and role models are his dad, and good dads everywhere. “My dad is a successful entrepreneur,” shared Miller. “Since I was little, he always encouraged me to work, explore, and find things I liked to do. I had the option of choosing a comfortable life in the family business (he would have preferred I did), but instead, he urged me to go out and find my own thing. I’m grateful for that every day I wake up excited to go to work.”
Miller makes time to run 2 or 3 days a week, always competing with himself for faster time and more distance. He often takes his kids fishing, and coaches his 7 year old son’s baseball, soccer and football teams. And somewhere, in all of this, he even finds time to make a little music. He can be spotted at open mics every now and then, channeling his inner rock star, inspired by Texas artists like Bob Schneider, Robert Earle Keen, SRV, and even some hard, classic, British rockers, the likes of Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. And, go figure – he’s pretty darn good at THAT too!
As far as his goals go, Miller shares, “My only goal for the future is for Ethan, Noah and Claire (his three children) to grow up happy with themselves and be kind to others.”
