Vivian Maier - What a find

[BillN]

just watch the video - just over 9 mins

100,000 negatives plus found

December 22, 2010 - Vivian Maier - Chicago Tonight Video - WTTW

 

[Pelao]

Hi
I agree. Amazing find. I downloaded the video to my phone and watched several times. Inspiring. Would love to go and see her stuff.

 

[bilzmale]

Ditto.

 

[994]

This is amazing! Thanks for sharing. Her eye seems impeachable! Has Don or Ray seen this yet?

The guy who has all this stuff -- John Maloof. His web site is here: John Maloof - Chicago Street Photography

And he's set up a web site for Vivian here: Vivian Maier - Her Discovered Work

It says there's a book coming out and a film. I definitely want that book!

He's also got a donation site for the movie they are doing: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/800508197/finding-vivian-maier-a-feature-length-documentary

I wonder if there are others like Vivian -- quietly toiling away in obscurity, making some truly great work?

 

[Ray Sachs]

I'd just seen a couple of references to the clip in the past few days and just watched it this morning. Incredible story and the little bit of work they showed is wonderful. I wonder why someone with that much talent never tried to get her work out there. Maybe she was just completely taken by the process and uninterested in the promotional aspects of getting it seen? I don't know, but I'm glad someone found it and is bringing it to light. If there's money to be made on this work, its too bad she didn't get to see any of it, but I have the feeling she got what she wanted from it, which was just the doing of it. If this kid can make some money on it, good on him - he's certainly putting in the time and effort and doing the world a service.

-Ray

 

[Streetshooter]

The beauty you see in her work comes from the innocence she cultivated.
She was not under influence by fame, fortune, curatorial pressure etc.
She just made images because she had to make images.

It's a wonderful way to work.

 

[Spaceghost33]

Exhibit

Her exhibit opens this Friday here in Chicago (runs through April). I plan on going to see it. What a talent!

 

[GaryAyala]

wow ... wow ... wow

 

[walt_tbay]

What an incredible story and an amazing sampling of images. Vivian must have been a remarkable, albeit eccentric, individual. Thanks for the link to the documentary project site ~ I'm inclined to help them with a donation.

Cheers!

 

[Luke]

I saw an article on her several months to a year ago. I can't wait to see the exhibition.

 

[BillN]

must look around in the "odd attic"

 

[Luke]

Can you believe the luck of that kid. spends a couple hundred on some boxes of old photos and will likely be a millionaire after the book deals and movie deals. I can't believe in the one part of the clip he says that there are still undeveloped rolls and boxes he hasn't looked through yet!

 

[BobBill]

Viv Meyer pics

+1 to this, and will being going down to see exhibit...

Her work graphically displays the meaning of "...for its own sake!"

 

[Pap]

It’s difficult to understand her very private passion for photography. Most would seek some recognition for their work but it seems she did not. Was it a lack of confidence in her images?
I view her images and what I see is the real truth of photography, not the spectacular sights of an Adams, carefully processed and promoted but the reality of life as it existed during her journey through life. Her images have meaning beyond the spectacular. They represent who we, as a people, are and were.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to see such brilliant work!
Pap

 

[BobBill]

It’s difficult to understand her very private passion for photography. Most would seek some recognition for their work but it seems she did not. Was it a lack of confidence in her images?
I view her images and what I see is the real truth of photography, not the spectacular sights of an Adams, carefully processed and promoted but the reality of life as it existed during her journey through life. Her images have meaning beyond the spectacular. They represent who we, as a people, are and were.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to see such brilliant work!
Pap

Plain art for its own sake, ala Breson, sans the job tickets. AA was art worthy but he did like the shine he received. Big difference, humility.

Besides, when you consider the times, note some of the backgrounds, you find she was working in a post war Chi awash in BW pics...my mom did the same thing with her Korelle and big old Solar large format enlarger. No fanfare, just artwork.

I wonder where in the city she resided.

 

[deirdre]

It’s difficult to understand her very private passion for photography. Most would seek some recognition for their work but it seems she did not. Was it a lack of confidence in her images?

I think I understand this a bit more after seeing "Exit Through the Gift Shop," where cameraman Thierry is an obsessive taker of footage but just boxes it up like Vivian did.

What's different in Thierry's case, though, is that Banksy gave him a distracting project, then took all his footage and made a film out of it. (The film is, of course, "Exit Through the Gift Shop.")

 

[Bill]

In a slightly different vein, there's an interesting video about The Sartorialist at:

[ame=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5NgG5koPZU&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Intel Visual Life - The Sartorialist[/ame]

 

[dsteady]

Her exhibit opens this Friday here in Chicago (runs through April). I plan on going to see it. What a talent!

Yeah! I'll be going this weekend I think. What an amazing find.

 

[phigmov]

Everyone I've passed the link on to has been inspired and awed by this ladies work.

Hopefully her pictures will make it down-under !