One of The Greatest Street Photographers You Almost Didn't Know

“Paradoxical”

“Mysterious”

“Bold”

“Excentric”

These are just a few words that come to mind when discussing the prolific and stunning work of the late, great Vivian Maier.

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Through a mutual love of street photography, @kus-knee’s mind was brought to the unique and interesting work of Vivian Maier. He mentioned her work and this documentary to me (thank you for that @kus-knee!!!) and after watching the beautifully styled film I was hooked. I dove into the portfolios of Vivian’s work and was mesmerized.

Vivian’s story is quite complicated and often controversial, so buckle up.

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Basically...

John Maloof purchased a box of negatives at an auction in 2007. He was looking for historical photos of Chicago for a book project.

He didn’t find anything he needed for his book and set the massive amount of negatives aside for a while. Soon after the completion of his book Maloof was, for some reason, drawn back to the negatives. He begins to take a closer look and, with his savvy flea market eye, sees value. He sees what he believes is good work.

In an effort to gain some perspective on the worthiness of this work, Maloof started a blog. He shared nearly 200 images of these scanned negatives on Flickr. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive and the photos spread like wildfire.

After the Flickr explosion, Maloof’s life as he knows it quickly follows suit. His life since this time has been dedicated to uncovering and sharing the life and work of Vivian Maier; the nanny/photographer.

Maloof obsessively chased down every lead, read every receipt, every child and family she worked for and left no stone unturned in the peculiar life of Miss Vivian Maier.

I’ll let the trailer guide you, I also highly recommend you watch the film before reading this. It’s a gorgeous and sort of haunting account of Vivian’s life, work, and interactions with the world.

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One of the first reactions I had of the film was that while of course focusing on Maier, was also a fascinating look into what it looks like to uncover an artist and become responsible for their work. Obviously, Maloof made the decision to become the caretaker of this work; I’m by no means saying that he is burdened by this responsibility. It was the careful and meticulous work Maloof put in before all this blew up that interested me. The scope of work involved in trying to know everything about one person’s life, especially this one person, is just insane to me. I commend Maloof for taking it on, and he’s almost as fascinating to me as Vivian. We’ll get back to that later.

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Maloof is not a photographer. He knew nothing about photography when he started this project. Something really savvy and extremely useful in the film was the testimony of established figures in the photography world.

This commentary really gives the work a context that makes the photographs and their caliber easier to grasp; it makes the entire story more accessible for those fascinated by the person but perhaps not able to, as readily, recognize the quality work being shown to them.

It looks like there’s an authentic eye, and a real savvy about human nature and photography and the street. And that kind of thing doesn’t happen often, day after day people send me their websites to look at and when I flick through them most of them I feel are undistinguished. But Vivian’s work instantly had those qualities of human understand and warmth and playfulness that I thought, this is a genuine shooter.

She didn't defend herself as an artist. She just did the work.

As she was photographing, she was seeing just how close you could come into somebody's space, and make a picture of them. That tells me a lot about her. It tells me that should could go into a space, with a total stranger, and get them to accommodate her by being themselves and generate this kind of moment you know, where two presences were actually kind of vibrating together.... And then she's gone.

-Joel Mayerwitz

This cat's a poet when describing photography and process.

She had a great sense of framing. She had a sense of humour, and a sense of tragedy. Beautiful sense of light, environment….I think people would’ve loved her work….Had she made herself known she would’ve become a famous photographer.

-Mary Ellen Mark

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One of my favorite aspects of the film, and probably one of the most powerful features of this project, is how much of her work actually reflects the stories that the interviewees tell.

From the first exposure of death at the stockyards that Inger Raymond speaks of, to the strawberry fields in the ravine Carol Pohn talks about. The bicycle incident multiple children mention. Phil Donahue’s account of his interview with Vivian at a diner. There are just so many examples. This evidence not only proves that all this isn’t some hoax, but also is a testament to how prolific Vivian was. She was Constantly taking photos.

It’s also a real show of the work of John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (the directors of the film) of how much work they both put forth to sift through the mass of material and tease out these specific moments that Vivian captured.

Maier was a complicated woman with many quirks and a very dark side. I won’t get into this here (you’ll just have to see the film) because I don’t know enough about Vivian to cast a negative light on her. There are many pieces of her life missing from our knowledge that may help others to be a bit more empathetic when they learn of her discretions and odd way of behavior. I choose to focus on the positive parts of her work and life.

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Discussed throughout the film is the view of the established photography world. It generally does not accept or acknowledge Vivian’s work as one of the greats, or at all for that matter.

Part of this has to do with just the fact that the work was all uncovered posthumously and there is much controversy dealing with the wishes of Ms. Maier; which photos would she have edited, which work would she have wanted shared and whether or not she would have wanted this at all.

That’s just a part of the reason though; I feel that many of these institutions simply don’t agree with Maloof that Maier deserves to be in the same discussion as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Atget, and Gary Winnogrand.

Which is more important though? The institution’s opinion of what is “good art” or the visceral reaction from the public that has shot Vivian Maier into posthumous stardom? Who is “right” about this work? For you to decide I suppose.

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Maloof has also received a lot of attention since purchasing that fateful chest of negatives. He has become a successful collector, the archive of Maier’s work is the “Maloof Collection”. He is making significant profit off of Ms. Maier’s work.

Is this okay? I’m not sure. I wrestle with the ideas of loving Maier’s work and grateful that Maloof uncovered and shared it with us all but also respecting the privacy of the reclusive artist and feeling a little ugly about having Maloof receive the stardom and financial gains on account of Vivian’s life’s work.

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We’ll never know the true wishes of Vivian Maier and we’ll never see more of her work. At the end of the day, I’m thankful that I was able to be exposed to this artist that has informed much of how I approach street photography now. I strive to be as bold and fearless and Maier seemed to be.

See the film. Go take some pictures and be thankful for the artist that teach us to keep searching.

All images courtesy of: http://www.vivianmaier.com/

-Chrissy