Snapshot
Miles’ images have a haunting quality and the black and white of a time that is not truly past nor truly present. He details the minutiae or daily life – snails in the shed, the funeral of a tiny kitten in a Puma shoebox, the disturbed fascination of a hatchling’s shell once discarded now colonised by worms. His photographs hold magical resonance of the familiar, twisted by the dissonance of the double take and tugged into a brief smile by Miles’ whimsical humour. Perhaps the most powerful image in our time of broken and distended families is Daughter, her tiny hand reaching out to touch an unfamiliar father’s face; too shy to be seen in the need, she hides herself under his jumper.

Sarah Jane Downing, Big Issue South West, December 2005

Window on the Interior
Like many of Miles’ images, there’s something quietly unsettling about the image [Tumulus] – something about the incongruity of the elements, perhaps, or the pretty girl’s sneaky sideways glance. The macabre also infiltrates this image as in so many others – the faceless older woman a possible future for the pretty child, the burial mound a reminder of the end to which they will all eventually succumb. But, as with the other images in this collection, it’s also beautifully photographed and printed, with fine grains etching out the gentle tones… Miles’ vision is singular and striking, and invisible is to be commended for presenting it to a wider audience.

Diane Smyth, British Journal of Photography, December 2005

Original Thinking
Highly original photographs…in Tumulus one of his images could well be a Diane Arbus – it shows a woman in an old fashioned steam tub placed in the middle of a sitting room while her husband watches TV… His work reminds me of the late great Raymond Moore (younger readers better look him up) but with people appearing in Miles’ pictures.

Eamonn McCabe, Black and White Photography, January 2006

Looking on the Strange Side of Life
The West Dorset photographer John Miles has a very idiosyncratic view of life. His stunning black and white images are so beautiful and whimsical that it is only on a second and longer look that you begin to perceive the bleakness of his vision.
The world, as observed by this master of monochrome, is a very strange place. It is also a very small place… The images are by turns poignant, provocative, grotesque, humorous and absolutely original.

Blackmore Vale Magazine, November 2005

David Gray's Rustic Art
Flush with the success of his new album Life In Slow Motion, singer-songwriter David Gray has taken to publishing art books. Last month saw the launch of his new enterprise, Invisible Inc, intended as an ‘umbrella organisation’ for various side interests. First out is Tumulus, a retrospective of photographs by John Miles. Like Gray, whose folksy ballads are nourished by his rural upbringing, Miles projects the spell of his inner world over rustic Dorset. Guests at a fireside launch were urged to ‘stick a compass into the west Dorset village of Loders on a 1-inch Ordnance survey map, draw a circle with a radius of ten inches… and you will find the location of 90 per cent of John Miles’ photographs.’ It's a poignant collection of images which subvert modern life, or even ignore it altogether - an activity which Gray and his coterie are happy to cheer on.

Prospect Magazine, January 2006

Other publications:
Times Literary Supplement, November 2005
The Art Newspaper, December 2005
Imaginative View of Life, Western Gazette, December 2005
Snap Judgement, Dorset Echo, January 2006
Creative Review, February 2006
Evolver Magazine, February 2006
Eggardon View, February 2006
AG magazine, April 2006
The Guardian Weekend, February 2006 (click to view)