Emerson Miller visited Times Square alone several years ago to see a billboard.

This wasn’t just any New York billboard. It was promotional material for a new television show being released in June 2018 on Paramount Network called “Yellowstone.” Miller went because he knew the photographer—himself.

“I didn’t tell anyone, and I was like, this is my moment,” says Miller, a stills photographer for the show. “I’m going to be that sensitive guy that it’s like, I don’t want to share this with people. I don’t want to make this entirely about me, but it is.”

Miller experienced a similar wave of emotions three years later while standing on a street corner in Los Angeles. His photo advertising the television show “Mayor of Kingstown,” which aired in November 2021, hung on a high-rise office building off Sunset Boulevard. Tears fell as Miller held a bottle of champagne thinking about how much his life had changed since he first stood on that street corner in 2014 after leaving the ghettos of São Paolo, Brazil.  

Miller shares these stories with 360West on a Zoom video interview while in Los Angeles. Even though Miller has a home in Los Angeles, he admittedly spent less than 30 days there in 2024. His job as a stills photographer on the shows “Landman,” “Yellowstone” and “The Madison” kept him in Texas, which included stops in Fort Worth.

How Miller came to be on the set of these shows and forever linked with Cowtown can be traced back to the street below the “Mayor of Kingstown” poster.

That corner housed the car wash where Miller worked part-time while taking photography classes at UCLA. Through those classes, he met a model named Nicole Muirbrook, the wife of writer, director, producer and actor Taylor Sheridan. Sheridan has directed, written or produced more than a dozen television shows and movies since 2015, giving screen time to Cowtown in “Yellowstone,” “1883,” “Landman,” “Lioness” and “The Madison,” among others.  

When Miller met the couple, they were young artists honing their crafts, seeking a breakthrough moment. Miller grew close with Muirbrook and Sheridan. He babysat their young son, practiced fashion photography skills with Muirbrook as a subject and navigated life with them.  

“So, it was like this beautiful relationship that we all kind of needed each other,” Miller says. “And then Taylor started growing by the minute and he invited me [along].”

Miller began working with Sheridan on the 2017 neo-Western crime movie “Wind River” and has since added “Yellowstone,” “1883,” “1923,” “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Landman” and “The Madison” to his resume.

Working as a stills photographer on American television shows and movies did not necessarily cross Miller’s mind as a career path growing up in Brazil. He just wanted a way out of the ghettos.

Miller loved art and doing creative projects as a kid, but determined it would not provide the right financial boost for a better future. So, he pursued business school.  

“I never thought I could make money doing that, so that’s why I went to business school,” Miller says. “But, somehow, I had a plan. I was like, ‘I’m going to make enough money and try to save as much as I can so I can focus on that.’”

He became the first person in his family to graduate from college and worked for a small Brazil-based company. A few years later, at 24 years old, Miller moved to Los Angeles. 

Miller viewed the move as an opportunity to restart his career and pursue his passion. He took the car wash job and enrolled at UCLA. Within a month, a mutual friend connected Miller with Muirbrook. During one of their photo shoots, Miller confided in her about the challenges brought on by this life change. 

“I told her I didn’t have many friends,” he says. “And we started hanging out from that day on.”

In 2016, filming began for “Wind River” in Park City, Utah. Sheridan wrote the script and directed the movie while Miller joined the crew as a second unit stills photographer. He also lived with Sheridan and Muirbrook. 

Their relationship continued growing on and off set. When Sheridan put together the “Yellowstone” crew, he selected Miller as a stills photographer.

“Taylor liked what I did,” Miller says. “So, when ‘Yellowstone’ showed up, Nicole gave the idea to Taylor to hire a fashion photographer to do unit stills for the show. And I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know that it was completely different.” 

The first week on set became a roller coaster ride, filled with doubts and questions. Miller says he got in trouble for not staying hidden behind cameras and being “a little too hungry.” 

Things got so rough Miller thought he had messed up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

But Sheridan believed in Miller, asking him to send in photographs from a full day of shooting and then sharing those photos with others on set. 

That move changed everything. 

“Then I walk back to set and all the producers, everybody was calling me by my name,” Miller says. “They’re like, ‘Oh my God, what you did was amazing.’”

Once Miller settled in, his career took off. His photos have appeared in articles about the shows, magazines like “Vogue” and “GQ”and countless marketing materials. His Instagram account has attracted actors as well. 

Miller takes photos during filming, but the key art––art used for bigger promotional items like billboards—comes between takes. Sometimes the shot is perfectly set up as a result of the scene, and other times Miller has to make slight adjustments.  

When looking for “Landman” key art in West Texas, everything just fell into place. 

“I saw the way the truck was parked, the windmills in the back of the truck and it was perfectly placed,” Miller says. “And I was like, holy shit, this is it.”

Miller then asked actor Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the show’s lead character Tommy Norris, to stand by the truck door.

“And I remember going to Billy and I’m like, ‘OK, give me 30 seconds. I have a feeling there is a billboard right here. Can we do this?’” Miller says. “And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ We have such a good relationship.”

Building relationships with actors—like Kevin Costner, Dame Helen Mirren and Sam Elliott—helps Miller get the perfect photo. He intentionally learns how much time each actor needs in between or after takes to prepare for a photo and will hold off on snapping the shutter if the previous scene was emotionally draining. The actors will reciprocate, Miller says, asking what he needs from them to improve the shot. 

Some of these relationships extend beyond the set. Kelly Reilly, who plays Beth Dutton in “Yellowstone,” has tapped Miller to be part of the creative team for her new whiskey brand, Ammunition.  

“Kelly is very passionate about her projects and she hand picks them,” Miller says. “So, the fact that she hand picked me to be a part of it, I was amazed.”

Miller remains humble and grateful for everything that has happened since meeting Muirbrook and Sheridan—whom he calls ”my family”—a decade ago. The couple has introduced him to several Fort Worth hangouts while filming shows. Joe T. Garcia’s tops the list of Miller’s favorite places as does Dickies Arena. 

Los Angeles still holds a special spot in Miller’s heart. It’s the place where he called his mom from more than 6,000 miles away, nervous about what the future held, and where that future began in a way he could have never imagined. 

“I understand I literally came from nothing,” Miller says. “I was just a kid with a big dream and somehow God introduced me to people that opened so many doors to me. … There’s still so much [room] for me to grow, but I try to enjoy as much as I can and be as present as I can.”