This is my own personal tribute to a photographer that I think we all aspire to be as good as, I have no images to post with this or any writings, just my own personal thoughts after watching the BBC program called 'Vivian Maier: Took Nanny's Pictures?'
Firstly it's so sad that this wonderful lady never got to see how we the public that have had the chance to see some of her images have taken to her work as an amazing street photographer. Today we have the digital cameras and all the software to make our own works to stand out, she on the other hand would take some of her rolls of film to the local chemist that used to arrange the processing of images. Its seems like our world and her world have collided as her works that are still on negatives or even on rolls of films are being process by today's technology and post processed, I wonder how she would feel about that.
As we know that all her works were in boxes or suitcases that were in storage that she paid heavily to store all these items and then when she ran out of money the lockup buyers moved in and bought up these storage units with no idea what they had. What is so so sad is that all her work has been broken up and as the company that bought the storage units throw away her personal writings that probably hold the key to who Vivian really was and what she thought of the world around her.
Its clear that she was very much a lonesome person even though she worked as a nanny and the children that she looked after as a nanny really don't seem to know much about her apart from her roll as their nanny and at times she took photos with her Roloflex camera.
The thoughts of today is that she spent most of her money on rolls of film and the Roloflex camera only took very few images but her hit rate with no miss shot photos was amazing when you see how hard it was to use the camera that she had. Those of us that have had ago at street photography know how fast pace the street world around us is and how you have to instinctively see the image before it happens, for her it was almost like she had a third eye and was extremely good at seeing the image before she took it.
With the images she captured that are close up, it would seem that she almost melted into the street as she was able to capture that natural look and was able to see the thoughts that was going through the person mind as she was photographing them. She also had the talent to approach her characters to ask them to take their photo, she didn't have the untrusting thoughts of people as today's street photography has.
She was able to capture images of herself is so many mirrored ways that, but each one that I've seen she looks so stern and almost lost in a world that had so many different things going on with it. She seems to be in the right place at the right time, something today we wished we were able to do, but life was very different in her era and she showed the world of the streets from all sides from those that almost had nothing to those that had everything. Some of her characters could of seen her as an easy target to relieved her of her bag or camera to make a few bucks, but it seems that the people she approached saw her as no threat and was happy to be part of something, if only they knew what they would become in the images that Vivian captured.
Her skills too me was to see the world around her, to take a step back and actually look. The very fact that most of her work was B&W she was dependent on the shop she would take her rolls of film to, would do a good job that she would keep the images. We don't know if she was able to process her one rolls of film.
I think from what I've seen that she was a very private person, the fact that know one knew who she was or her work, it makes me think how would she feel knowing what has happen to her work, the fact that people are paying thousands of dollars for one picture that would of covered her rent for more than that month, that she could have had a comfortable life, specially in her last years of her life. At the end of the program one neighbour says that she looked like a bag lady, is that how she wanted it to be, would she have been able to cope with the huge media attention that has grabbed the photographic community today, we will never know and maybe that's a good thing.
Now that we know of and her work, is it fare that those that have parts of it that they bought for a couple of hundred bucks should hold onto it and make their money from her silent and unpaid for work. Would it not be better to be put in a museum so that the world can see for free as she did in taking the images in the first place, she asked for nothing and got noting but the sole of the images that she captured over her lifetime.
Thank you Vivian Maier for being the person you were and bless you for capturing a world that many of us aspire to be able to do in our own lifetime as growing photographers that like you started with the minimal of equipment and have learnt so much from your personal images over your lifetime.
Thank you for reading, AndyD
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