From a series of portraits by local photographer Dustin Miller, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks pose before and after the Tedeschi Trucks Band's October 2025 performance at The Amp | Dustin Miller
Published on August 6, 2026 at 9:30 am
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By the time an artist is able to command a large enough audience to fill the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, they’ve already reached a level of cultural relevance as to be familiar if not known. This is especially true in 2026, when image-driven social media applications, and the para-social relationships they encourage, offer fans an illusory level of intimacy with even the most famous celebrities.
Presenting such known commodities in a new light, then, requires both a discerning eye and a deft ability to tame the light.
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An ongoing series of portraits by St. Augustine photographer Dustin Miller, taken backstage at The Amp, are nothing if not illuminating, as Miller’s lens finds some of the world’s most-popular working musicians at both their most assured and most vulnerable. Miller’s portraits – of pop crooners and country troubadours, hip-hop legends and revered bluesmen – humanize those who, to many, are alien or divine beings. Taken in the moments just before and after they hit the stage at the renowned Northeast Florida music venue, not only do Miller’s black-and-white compositions disassemble presumptions of era and genre, they establish a sub-rosa immediacy.
Though each photograph is worth parsing individually, the portraits in the series are best observed in before-and-after diptychs. For example, the smiles of Jacksonville natives Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks betray a sense of determination; of road-tested, blue-collar performers set to clock in for a shift. The duo’s post-show countenance, meanwhile – both sporting toothy, sincere grins; Trucks sweaty and holding a flask-sized bottle of his signature Ass Pocket Whiskey – conveys elation, the requisite stage euphoria achieved. Conversely, New Orleans rapper Juvenile hams it up before hitting the stage. Upon return, the rapper appears serene, as if emboldening a crowd of some 5,000 to groove to his indelible bass-heavy bounce, has brought solace.
From preppy and shy, 23-year-old country upstart Sam Barber transforms into something more edgy and self-assured. The Texas songsmith Ryan Bingham, stoic in his Stetson before hitting the stage, is jubilant afterwards, inviting his wife to join in the merriment. Even Weird Al Yankovic, who grins maniacally in both of Miller’s photographs, evinces a level of bliss in his post-show portrait.
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“I was just looking to make some work closer to home,” says the 44-year old Miller, who lives within biking distance of The Amp, but whose commercial cinematography and photography work finds him away from Northeast Florida most weeks.
In a little less than a year, Miller has photographed nearly a dozen artists pre- and post-stage at the amphitheatre and, more recently, the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall. The constraints are myriad – from the small confines within which he has to work to the willingness of artists to participate. Representatives from the venues usually pitch the idea of sitting for Miller’s portraits to the artists in the days leading up to the show. He reckons about half of the artists who’ve been asked have said “yes.”
Once given the greenlight, Miller constructs his set: a custom canvas backdrop, a simple strobe, a humble apple box. “I thought it would be interesting to have everyone on the same playing field, right?” Miller says of his approach to the portrait series. “I wanted the images to have a timeless feel, and a uniformity so that each artist’s personality could come out.”
On their way to the stage, performers stop at Miller’s booth and plop down on the apple box. He takes a few snaps, and then, to the roars of adoring fans, they’re off. He gets them again on their way off stage – crowd still roaring.
“There’s definitely a bit of a game-face thing happening before they go on,” he says of what, in some images, can look like pre-show jitters, determination or road weariness. “When they come off they’re usually much looser. And sweaty of course.”
