finding vivian maier

[Godfrey]

I agree, but many in the US seemingly do not. It seems that in the US, the only way you can call yourself something is if you do it for a living. If I said to someone at a party that I was a photographer, they would assume it was my job.

🙂 I'm totally unconcerned with what everybody else does. I say and do what I think is right. ;-)

If someone asks at a party, I say I make my living as a technical writer (at the moment...), but my real work is photography.

G

 

[jsrockit]

If someone asks at a party, I say I make my living as a technical writer (at the moment...), but my real work is photography.

I'm kind of the same... I tell them my real job and then talk about going out and photographing.

 

[Highway 61]

Artists—Photographers—do their work with intent and are trying to express it.

Sometimes they shouldn't... 😀

It seems that in the US, the only way you can call yourself something is if you do it for a living.

I am living at 6,400km from the East coast of the US and can tell you that it's the same here.

And it's for sure the same in China or in Biafroghalistan.

 

[Mcary]

I agree, but many in the US seemingly do not. It seems that in the US, the only way you can call yourself something is if you do it for a living. If I said to someone at a party that I was a photographer, they would assume it was my job.

That's because to most people in the US your profession/job is what you are. People are photographers, Masons, Doctors, Lawyer, Technical Writers,,,, Myself I look at my job as something I do to pay the bills and have money for the things I'm passionate about such as photography.

 

[jsrockit]

I am living at 6,400km from the East coast of the US and can tell you that it's the same here.

And it's for sure the same in China or in Biafroghalistan.

I figured that, I just didn't want to assume.

 

[__--]

I've come to appreciate a sober fact, that 80% of photographic skill is to be found in editing one's pictures. This is the only point I could raise against considering Vivian a photography great. On all other counts, she was one.

Then I take it you wouldn't call Eggleston a great photographer because he took some 5,000 (or was it 10,000?) slides to Szarkowski, who edited them into the MOMA exhibition that was its first of color photography as art?

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Download links for book project pdf files
Chiang Tung Days
Tristes Tropiques
Bangkok Hysteria
Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems

 

[__--]

...There are so many people lecturing down to photographers, and they haven't got a clue. Sure they can pick out some nice photos, and rubber stamp that which has been already accepted, but to have invested decades and cultivated the ability to create photos -- well all I can say to the experts is, anyone can talk a good photo, here's my camera show me what you've got...[/IMG]

Dan, on re-reading your post the above struck me in that you seem to be saying that a critic can only be good if he or she is a good photographer, which strikes me as fallacious: for example, AD Coleman is a very good critic, who is not at all a photographer.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Download links for book project pdf files
Chiang Tung Days
Tristes Tropiques
Bangkok Hysteria
Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems

 

[Colin Corneau]

...To label someone who revelled in being secret, obscure, who never showed their work to anyone ... I'm not sure that I'd label that person a photographer although it is obvious from the evidence that she made great photographs.

I can't raise her to the level of a Joel Meyerowitz, Mary Ellen Mark, Henri Cartier-Bresson, or Robert Frank as a Photographer because, regardless of the excellence of her photographs (or not as your aesthetics are inclined), she never expressed her work to anyone else or revealed her intent. Artists—Photographers—do their work with intent and are trying to express it....G

It was fairly clear from the documentary, and looking over her life story, that Maier was burdened with some substantial mental health issues - possibly as a result of early trauma or possibly just an inherent trait.

I'm not comfortable denying someone who created the calibre of work she did the title of "artist" or "photographer" for reasons beyond her ability to control.
Those adjectives are dependent one thing and one thing only -- THE WORK.

Not her mental state, not her burdens in life she had to bear...that's quite unjust to suggest otherwise.

 

[__--]

...There are a lot of people out there who make great photographs. She made a lot of them, better than most from what I've seen so far (in the genre). We tend to label these people as photographers, but are they really?

To me, the label is lacking in one aspect in this case. The signal aspect of any artist is that they share their work. The mythic image of painters, photographers, sculptors working in obscurity doesn't jibe for me. Artists produce works of art to please themselves first, yes, but they also are compelled to share their passion by showing their work, offering it to an audience, one way or another.

To label someone who revelled in being secret, obscure, who never showed their work to anyone ... I'm not sure that I'd label that person a photographer although it is obvious from the evidence that she made great photographs.

...she never expressed her work to anyone else or revealed her intent. Artists—Photographers—do their work with intent and are trying to express it.

A very interesting person. I'm glad that her photographs didn't get tossed in the dumpster, I'm glad that she's been found, but I find it hard to consider her a photographer rather than a person who made a lot of wonderful photographs...

Others have already reacted to this, and my own feeling is that it's the nature of the work rather than the intent that makes it art. There may be other obvious cases, but let's consider Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who wrote only one book, a novel about Sicily — and it's a masterpiece — The Leopard. I'll quote at length from a Guardian article by Julian Barnes:

"Most writers have a slightly paranoid sense of not having had their due; it's often part of what keeps them going. Most sensible writers, however, keep to hand examples of others who have had it far worse. Consider, for example, this abbreviated life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Born 1896. Publishes three scholarly articles in 1926-7, then falls silent. In 1954, begins to write The Leopard. May 1956, sends first version to the publishers Mondadori. December 1956, Mondadori turns it down. Winter of 1956-7, completes second version of the novel. February 1957, submits it to Einaudi. April 1957, diagnosed with lung cancer. 2 July, Einaudi rejects novel. 23 July, Lampedusa dies. November 1958, The Leopard is published by Feltrinelli, and world fame immediately ensues – for the novel, but too late for the novelist.

A puritanical response might be to ask: what on earth was he doing with his life anyway, and why didn't he get down to writing earlier? David Gilmour, in his well-judged biography The Last Leopard (1988), explained some of the reasons. Lampedusa was afflicted with several handicaps (not so much to being a writer, but to being thrustful enough to dream of, and then achieve, publication): extreme shyness; enough money never to need take a job; plus a sense that, as a Sicilian aristocrat, he came from an exhausted, irrelevant culture.

There were other factors too, including a major nervous breakdown in his 20s, and a domineering mother, Beatrice Palma. When Giuseppe made a late marriage to the equally formidable Latvian psychoanalyst Alessandra "Licy" Wolff, Beatrice made her son choose between the two of them. Giuseppe weakly opted for his mother and settled into a lengthy marriage-by-correspondence (in French) with Licy.

As for what he was doing with his life, there are two answers. The non-literary one would be: not very much. In his mature years, on a typical day, he might first visit the bookshop and cakeshop, then sit reading in a cafe for hours, return home for tea and buns, and perhaps go out to the film club in the evening. The literary answer would be: waiting. The nature and texture of that wait – and the extent to which it was necessary for Lampedusa to write The Leopard – thus become of interest. Except that a biography of waiting is the hardest sort to write."

You can read more of Julian Barnes' article here. If you don't know Lampedusa and The Leopard, here are a few more Guardian articles. I think that The Leopard is a book everyone should read — and, somewhat off topic, I would also like to recommend one of the best travel books that I've ever read, Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily: suffice it to say the the subtile is: On Art, Food, History, Travel, and La Cosa Nostra. In this book, Robb states The Leopard is the first novel that represents a mafioso as a major character.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Download links for book project pdf files
Chiang Tung Days
Tristes Tropiques
Bangkok Hysteria
Paris au rythme de Basquiat and Other Poems

 

[Roma]

Got to see the movie a couple of weeks ago here in New Orleans and thoroughly enjoyed it. Actually, was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. One of the movie editors was here for q & a after the screening who confirmed how difficult it is to select her images for display because most of them are so well framed and exposed.

I also asked him about her audio recordings (since they don't play many in the movie) and he said that they are not very revealing about her. Apparently she liked to go around with a tape recorder and interview random people about various headline stories of her time.

 

[anjoca76]

I just went back and looked at a bunch of her images. Whatever, if I had in my portfolio even one or two of her portraits, I would be one happy camper. If she posted in the gallery here on RFF, there is almost no one's images I would rather click on.

Though I love photography, I am far more accomplished at music and have learned over the years everyone likes different styles, has different tastes, etc. So these debates here as to whether VM was worth her salt as a photographer are pointless. All I know is that when I saw her work, I was blown away--and that was months before I had any clue about her "story." I figured she had been acclaimed for many, many years.

The beauty of life is that none of us think the same. If you don't like her images, no big deal. There are plenty of us who do. I happen to really like Eggleston, and lord knows he has many haters.

I look forward to seeing the movie soon.

 

[Highway 61]

In an excellent documentary about him, Saul Leiter tells that probably 99% of the best photos potentially available out there were taken by "anonymists", and that it's the reason he's been loving photography all his life long.

 

[fotomeow]

Great Doc, and I love the concept of "discovering" great photos from unknown folks. In particular, her style is uncannily similar to Diane Arbus ....... but Vivian was shooting BEFORE Arbus, and Vivian but self-educated in photography: no photo schools or rich parents ...