Kevin Cooley – The Wizard of Awe

Review by Hans Hickerson ·

Wow. There is a lot to like about Kevin Cooley’s The Wizard of Awe. A happy marriage of book design, storytelling, and photography, it elevates the photobook conversation to a level higher than anything I have seen in a long time.

For starters the cover is spectacular. It shows falling smoke and embers from an explosion rendered in black silk screen printing and copper foil embossing that pops off the page.

It only gets better when you open the book. Colored paper is used as one way to denote chapters or sections, and six pages of uncoated orange stock open and close the book. After the title page, emails to the author from Ken Miller, the “Wizard of Awe,” start the narrative. Then we see four dark full-page photographs of fire and smoke, one to a page spread, with a blank black page opposite. The nighttime lighting is dramatic and the coiling smoke becomes a menacing creature conjured by a Harry Potter villain.

The story is told in four chapters of images and minimal texts: “Ken,” “The Wizard of Awe,” “United States v. Kenneth Ray Miller,” and “A Pyro Technist I Have Been.” In the first chapter we get to know more about Ken. We see him at home, in his workshop, and setting off explosions on his farm in Minnesota, and we understand that he makes his living selling rockets and smoke displays to clients such as the author.

In the second chapter we see more of him setting off rockets and explosions and smoke devices. Small black and white photographs and text paragraphs scattered here and there add another dimension, the back story to Ken and how he got started working with pyro devices, plus the story of the pyro accident that killed his business partner.

Chapter three tells the story of federal prosecutors investigating and prosecuting Miller for unlicensed possession of explosives as a repeat offender, as he had previously been convicted of unauthorized manufacture of fireworks. The chapter includes texts in the form of official police reports as well as 16 pages of evidence photographs – more than one hundred photos – printed as a separate section on uncoated tan-colored paper. The small black and white photo / text counter-narrative continues, and it explains that as a result of his prosecution Ken was overcome with guilt and depression.

In the concluding chapter, we see more factual texts on Miller’s conviction and incarceration that contrast with Miller’s own heart-felt, soul-searching words. You conclude that he was treated harshly even though he did not hide anything (he did not think that what he was doing was illegal) and no one was harmed by his actions. The photographs here were taken in the winter and show pyro displays and Miller on his farm.

The closing section, printed on uncoated orange paper like the opening section, reads like an epilogue. We see flashback photos of Miller as a young pyro enthusiast and as a new father holding a baby and a rocket.

The editing, layout, and sequencing of the photographs is tight, and the artistic and design choices work together coherently to support the narrative. Nothing feels superfluous, gratuitous, or repetitious. The photography is strong. There are any number of spectacular photos of explosions and smoke that stand out. Made mostly at night or against the background of evening skies, they read variously like battlefield photos, volcanoes, abstract paintings, or telescopic views of distant galaxies exploding. Several of the smoke images in particular give me goosebumps: their painterliness gets to me like Larry Sultan’s swimmers.

“Wizard” is an especially apt name for Miller. Given the magical flashes and colors involved in the practice of his craft, in some of the photos you would not be surprised to see mountain trolls or dragons. Ken Miller’s story is real however, not fiction. It is a personal tragedy, and author Kevin Cooley gives us a front-row seat.

Hans Hickerson, Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is a photographer and photobook artist from Portland, Oregon.

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Kevin Cooley – The Wizard of Awe

Photographer: Kevin Cooley (born in 1975, lives in Los Angeles)

Texts: Ken Miller, Kevin Cooley

Design: Carel Fransen

Lithography: Marc Gijzen

Printing: Albe de Coker (BE)

Language: English

Hardbound with embossed foil and silkscreen printed cover; sewn binding; 144 pages; 87 color, 10 B/W, 144 police evidence color photographs; 22 X 32 cm; ISBN 978-94-93363-09-0

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