Days of the Ducklings

An award-winning photographer, Bruce McMillan is the author of several books for children. Bruce McMillan received his first camera at age five and his first professional camera at age nine. By the time he finished high school, he was quite accomplished as a photographer. After college, he worked for three years at a television station as a camera operator, director, and producer. For two years after that, he was a caretaker on an island off the Maine coast. In that isolation, he worked on improving his writing skills. By the end of his time on the island, he had photographed and written his first book, Finest Kind o' Day: Lobstering in Maine. McMillan calls himself a photo-illustrator rather than a photographer because, he says, "what I do is...similar to what other children's illustrators do.... We approach books in the same way." Like other illustrators, he creates each book as a whole. First, he thinks through the story and visualizes how he wants each photograph to look. Only then does he take the photos. He lives in Shapleigh, Maine.