EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The word “legend” is thrown around a lot these days, but when it comes to former NEWS10 photographer Marty Miller, it’s a description that comes up over and over. Tuesday, Marty was honored for his life‘s work. One of his former colleagues, NEWS10’s Anya Tucker, spoke with him as he looked back on a life and career in the news biz.

His personal collection of photos is like a time portal into the Capital Region’s past and its biggest stories. They are hardly fluff. Through his lens Marty Miller captured breaking news. Hard hitting and raw. “It was in my blood. It was more in my blood, than getting the money for it,” said Miller. Growing up in Albany, he snapped photos for his high school newspaper. His sister Linda Plue describes him as always having a camera in hand. “If he heard the fire sirens going off, I mean he hopped in the car and was right out there,” she said.

After a stint in the Army, starting in the 1960s, Miller worked as a photographer for area newspapers such as the Knickerbocker News as well as WTEN in Albany. In those days, TV news stories were shot on film, as in “Film at 11.” As the years went by and technology changed, he moved on to using video and digital cameras while working side-by-side with some of the Capital Region’s most notable reporters. He was best known for his exclusive images and videos, like during a shootout on I-90 in 2009 after a gunman opened fire on a state trooper during a traffic stop. To his colleagues, he seemed perfectly at ease during chaotic and sometimes dangerous situations. Perhaps it was his experience as an East Greenbush volunteer firefighter and EMT that gave him a boosted sense of urgency.

Anya Tucker, who worked with Miller for five years at WTEN, spoke about how his co-workers and as well as photographers with competing stations would often wonder how he arrived on breaking news scenes, sometimes well before police or fire crews. “Sometimes it wasn’t until the next day that they got there,” laughed Marty.

The first love of his life has always been family, which includes two daughters and a son, and his wife Kathy, who was his partner in life and in work. The couple met as teenagers through Kathy’s father, Joe Winchell. Winchell had been a photographer and Marty’s mentor. It was not uncommon for Kathy to tag along while Marty was shooting a fire or accident scene after hearing a call on the police/EMS scanner, and it was often Kathy who gathered the inside information from witnesses on scene. On August 1, 2022 Kathy passed away, leaving behind scores of grieving loved ones, including Marty, behind.

In 2011, Miller retired from NEWS10, yet he continues to snap pictures of structure fires and crashes. His huge body of work is basically an archive of the people and places of the Capital Region and his town of East Greenbush. Tuesday, he was honored during a special ceremony by dignitaries, family and friends at the East Greenbush Town Hall. At 82 years old, he admits he has slowed down a bit, but the man they call “The Legend” is still out there chasing stories. “Just to go out and tell the rest of the world about the things that are going on. And if the world don’t know what goes on, everything falls apart.”