Wayne Miller is one of the giants of 20th century photography. Born and raised in Chicago, Miller’s skills with a camera were honed to a razor’s edge during World War II. Along with capturing the lives and work of American sailors, he was one of the first photographers allowed to document Hiroshima and its survivors after the atomic bomb.

After the war, Miller returned to Chicago where he documented people in Bronzeville the neighborhood known as the “Black American Capital.” He taught at the Institute of Design, and continued to create iconic pictures of everyone from migrant farm workers to his own children.

Last winter, the first major gallery overview of Miller’s early work was on display at Chicago’s Stephen Daiter Gallery. The show coincided with the new book Wayne F. Miller: Photographs 1942-1958. Miller says that even after all these years, he doesn’t consider himself an artist, and certainly didn’t set out to create art.