Vivian Maier was photographer from the 1950s. She bought her first camera in 1952, which was a rollefelx TLR camera. She was only discovered after she died, Her stuff was sold off at auction and in her possessions, John Maloof bought a box of negatives and undeveloped film, and later acquired the other boxes. Around 100,000 negatives and slides were discovered and John Maloof set to work scanning in all her work and eventually got her discovered. He produced and directed a film, which is titled “finding Vivian Maier” which gives an in depth look into how Maier was discovered.
With Maier her work is was questionable to whether it could be considered art, due to how in photography there are vital choices the artist makes, e.g. what paper to print on, what chemicals where being used. Majority of her wok was not developed by her, and the work that was she got sent to France to get printed in he town she grew up in. In the documentary you see them visiting the shop and talking to the owner, who was the son and grandson of the person ho printed Maiers work. This was all explained by her letters which were sent to the shop.This gave Maloof a good idea and specifications to create the rest of her work how she wanted it. This discovery showed how she actually wanted her work to be printed and shown, instead of initially thinking she didn't want them shown.
Before Maloof discovered her work, not a lot was known about her. Her parent were European and they were out of the picture early on into her life. The information that we now know came from the fact that she worked as a nanny in Southampton NY, and in 1956 she moved to Chicago where she had her own private bathroom which she used as a dark room, so when her film reals were found all the negatives where from 1956 to the early 70s where the children she looked after grew up and she found a new job. This is when she switched to colour film. Also her box of undeveloped films started to build up due to not being to easily develop her film.
She chose the job as that enabled her to have accommodation and the availability to explore to take pictures. There is also a lot of evidence o show that she has traveled the world. Where she took pictures , trips to Canada in 1951 and 1955, in 1957 to South America, in 1959 to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, in 1960 to Florida, in 1965 she’d travel to the Caribbean Islands. Where ever she went she was always drawn to the less fortunate in society. She felt she could relate to them.
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| 1973 - Chicago- Vivian Maeir |
The first picture was taken in Chicago in august of 1973. It was taken when Maier had moved to colour film as she was not developing them herself. Its a picture of the news paper. The main headline in the news paper was about Nixon claiming that the boming over Cambodia saved American lives. I think that the idea that Nixons eyes are covered was also a reason for her shot, we are told that she is very political and the eyes being covered could relate to how Nixon is blind to collateral damage that he is causing in Cambodia .It is a strange picture to take for Maier. This is because she kept hundreds of news papers piled up in her room, she kept them every day as she always though it would come in use or she wanted to save the article. To take a picture of this news paper meant that it must have meant something to her.
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| May 1955 - NY - Vivian Maier |
This picture is of a man in May 1955 in New York was taken on one of Maier walks around New York. The picture was taken with a Rolieflex and would have been in the moment. She use to take pictures by just walking up to people and taking pictures. She would focus the camera and then walk up to someone and take a picture. You can see this because the man is looking at her in the eye and at this point in time doesn't know is picture is being taken. She managed to do this on many occasions. The shadows on the mans face are really defined which shows how old he is. The subject is unknown, and will probably never know who he is. The photo was taken in black and white and was most likely been a negative scanned in my Maloof in the early days of getting Maiers work know.
The fact Maier wasn't a journalist gives us an insight into the everyday life in the 50s to 70s America in Chicago and New York, and in the country's she traveled to. The images she takes are often the lower class which is who she identified with more than anythingelse which is why there are lots of images relating to that, and because its not as well know to us this type of life as its not shown in the mainstream media, she had an importance because she was discovered in the way that she was.
I will be using a TLR camera like Vivian Maier did. This is also because I can used 120 film which gets a higher quality of pictures as you can make it larger before you lose the quality of the picture. It also is an excellent type of camera to take pictures in the street due to the location of where the camera hangs and you can still see what you are taking a picture of. Although the focusing will be hard.
The comparison I am making to Maier is the modern-day photo journalist, this is because Maier documented her life much like photo journalists documents events which get put into newspapers. An example of a famous photo journalist was Tim Hetherington who covered the Libya civil war, and many other evens in Afghanistan, Cambodia to London and demonstrations and other events. Where he takes pictures of the lower class and connect with them in an attempt to get there story across. To make shocking images for the news or some other form of media.
The picture that I want to look at from Hetherington was a picture taken in a hospital in 2011, It was taken with a digital cameras , which will be due to how many pictures a digital camera can take. The picture shows a man in a hospital bed on the bottom 1/3 of the image, splitting it up into thirds. This picture is meant to shock. It is meant to show how the war is effecting people and how there is a lot of devastation due to this war. There are other pictures in a hospital where there are many people in the room with all minor injuries.
I find there is a difference between the 2 types of mediums to documentation. I feel that Maier was far more everyday and small time photography, whereas Hetherington was big scale news papers but less known to the public. I think It would be more appropriate to compare Maier to a street vloger, who runs a small time blog and documenting their day through the camera with pictures or video. Although Maier became famous after her death
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