The Unseen Photographs of a Legend that Never Was

[Ilovemycam]

Look, my point isn't that Vivian Maier isn't that she's definitely terrible, or definitely awesome.

My point is simply that we have NO IDEA if she was a merely competent technician who got lucky say 1 in 5000 shots, or whether she was an unsung genius the likes of Mozart, or if she was someplace in between. My money is on "someplace in between" but there's a lot of daylight between "competent and lucky technician" and "street photography's Mozart".

We're also not very likely to get any idea. There are parties with vested interests in making sure that she's the Mozart of Photography, and there isn't anyone getting paid to prove otherwise. So, we're left with a hype machine and a modest portfolio of pretty good pictures.

Umm..sorry to burst your little bubble there bud, but we have a clear,obvious guide to her abilities; they shine through in the images. Are you suggesting that after 40+ years of constant photographing with film, she was little more than a button-pusher?

Seriously, man....take a day off and think about it. You're obviously just blowing smoke with such oddball thinking. Her portfolio, what we have seen, is much better than that of many who are well-known. Your line of thinking strikes me as crackpot. Or worse.

After decades of shooting images in one city, with as fine a camera as a Rolleiflex, and 40+ years' total experience, it's obvious that she knew how to shoot and did so at a very practiced level. I can see her ability in the pictures. I have absolutely NO IDEA why you persist with such bizarre, off-base, illogical suppositions and weird flights of fancy...

Your idea that she was quite possibly a hack makes zero sense. None.

I've seen a lot of her stuff. Decent street photog. Not the greatest of the 20th century, but still good.

A lot of the pix have nostalgic value that adds to their viewing pleasure. No great work of art here...

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/...nseen-photographs-of-a-legend-that-never-was/

But tack on some age and her name and it is fine art.

I got one of her books. The other book has so-so and I did not buy it.

It is somewhat right about 100,000 pix. Usually something comes out of it. These type of street pix require you to snap pix as people walk by. Not hard to do

http://jophilippe.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/vivian_maier_04_460.jpg

Helen Levitt was another lady street photog that did some interesting work.

http://jophilippe.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/a-compared-analysis-of-vivian-maier’s-work-part-2/

 

[amolitor]

You and I are gonna have to just disagree here, Derrel.

ETA: Taking a day off to think about it isn't going to change my opinion of this. I've been thinking this over for a few months now, at least, and I am pretty confident of my opinion. 100,000 is a very big number.

 

[Steve5D]

You and I are gonna have to just disagree here, Derrel.

ETA: Taking a day off to think about it isn't going to change my opinion of this. I've been thinking this over for a few months now, at least, and I am pretty confident of my opinion. 100,000 is a very big number.

Again, why does it matter?

 

[TMC]

I think that the real amazing thing is that she managed to allow 100k shots build up undeveloped. My experience with film was very brief but I never allowed more than a couple rolls of film go a week tops before I had to have it developed. the curiosity of how well the pics would turn out would eat thru me!! Also I wonder how she managed to develop her skills if she didn't ever develop any pics to evaluate and learn from. However, It may be that she did indeed develop some film just none from this lot.

 

[amolitor]

You and I are gonna have to just disagree here, Derrel.

ETA: Taking a day off to think about it isn't going to change my opinion of this. I've been thinking this over for a few months now, at least, and I am pretty confident of my opinion. 100,000 is a very big number.

Again, why does it matter?

Arguably it doesn't matter to the work at all. It matters to the understanding of the artist, though. There are several things in play here, and it matters to some and not to others.

 

[pgriz]

For a "street" photographer, Vivian Maier shows both engagement with and awareness by her photographic subjects. Many of the shots are very up-close and personal. When I look at the images, I am pulled into the moment. At the very least, she was a very good observer of human life. Her photographic technique was pretty good as well - in a number of images that I saw on the site about her, there is (at least to me) a very clear arrangement of visual elements that as Lew has said "put important things in important places".

Even if we are seeing a well-curated exposition of her work, there is enough good stuff there to make it notable. We have argued on the pages of this forum site, that it is not the keeper rate that marks a good photographer, but the ability to capture a key image, and in that she has succeeded very well. Let's put it another way - I am confident that if you gave a person with less talent a camera and had them snap 100,000 images, that the number of really good and insightful images that may result will be very small, maybe even none. The level of engagement she has with her subjects (all strangers to her) puts her work into a different category than then images of a casual snapper.

If the curators skimmed the cream, then we need to acknowledge that there had to be cream to start with.

 

[Ilovemycam]

Oh...forgot to say. 100K is nothing for us digital photogs.

 

[Steve5D]

You and I are gonna have to just disagree here, Derrel.

ETA: Taking a day off to think about it isn't going to change my opinion of this. I've been thinking this over for a few months now, at least, and I am pretty confident of my opinion. 100,000 is a very big number.

Again, why does it matter?

Arguably it doesn't matter to the work at all. It matters to the understanding of the artist, though. There are several things in play here, and it matters to some and not to others.

What I understand about this artist is that she always had a camera with her, and was always shooting something or someone. Everything else being equal, I think we all would have a fantasy about being able to do just that. She captured what she saw. The quality of the photos (which appears to be quite good) isn't what would necessarily make her a "legend". What would accomplish that is the sheer number of frames, and the fact that no one had ever seen them.

You're simply a "glass is half empty" kind of guy. Since we don't know the quality of everything she shot, you assume that she got lucky. Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every so often. I, and others, prefer to simply view the work which has been released and base an opinion on that. You say "there are several things in play here", yet you seem to be basing your opinion on the fact that we've seen only a fraction of what she shot...

 

[amolitor]

You're simply a "glass is half empty" kind of guy. Since we don't know the quality of everything she shot, you assume that she got lucky.

This is almost right. As I have said several times, though, it's not that I assume she got lucky. It's that we do not and cannot know whether or not she did. This is kind of an important distinction.

You say "there are several things in play here", yet you seem to be basing your opinion on the fact that we've seen only a fraction of what she shot...

The photographs are what they are, and many of the ones we have seen are quite fine. How they were made is irrelevant.

How they are attributed, however, is a separate issue and it does matter. Curators and editors are under appreciated at best. The question is not "are these photographs any good" but rather "who should get credit". We do know that in many cases she did not even develop the film. The all-important step of circling the right frame on the contact sheet was done by someone else, we know that much for sure.

The "several things in play" has nothing to do with the size of the archive, but with the issues. Are the photos any good? Who should get credit for them? Is someone getting rich? Where's the money going? Who owns the rights? And so on, there's plenty of questions to be asked, and many of them have answers. The "is the work any good" question is but one -- and that one, I grant you, has nothing whatsoever to do with how the work was made.

 

[Tiller]

This is almost right. As I have said several times, though, it's not that I assume she got lucky. It's that we do not and cannot know whether or not she did. This is kind of an important distinction.

Amolitor,

We only see a very small fraction of what Van Gogh painted in his lifetime. Does that mean we can't say he's a brilliant painter because we haven't seen all of his work?

Not a jab, its an honest question. I'm interested in your point of view.

 

[amolitor]

There's a much lower chance that van Gogh simply "got lucky", low enough to be negligible. For a couple reasons:

- it's a heck of a lot harder to get lucky in even a single painting, and creating a stylistically connected set of paintings pretty much rules out "randomly daubing, and getting lucky" even for abstracts. You CAN demonstrably "get lucky" with the camera.
- it's a lot harder to create 100,000 paintings than 100,000 negatives.

Photography is either unique or nearly so in the fine arts in that one can get lucky and produce truly excellent work. A single excellent photograph by pure chance is clearly a possible thing.

A single excellent painting, sculpture, string quartet, dance, or whatever else by pure chance seems to be pretty darn unlikely.

This possibility of random chance is one of the HUGE issues with photography as fine art. You simply have to accept it, at least as a theoretical thing, to accept photography as fine art. The role of serendipity looms large, even in photographs made by acknowledged experts in the craft.

 

[Tiller]

There's a much lower chance that van Gogh simply "got lucky", low enough to be negligible. For a couple reasons:

- it's a heck of a lot harder to get lucky in even a single painting, and creating a stylistically connected set of paintings pretty much rules out "randomly daubing, and getting lucky" even for abstracts. You CAN demonstrably "get lucky" with the camera.
- it's a lot harder to create 100,000 paintings than 100,000 negatives.

Photography is either unique or nearly so in the fine arts in that one can get lucky and produce truly excellent work. A single excellent photograph by pure chance is clearly a possible thing.

A single excellent painting, sculpture, string quartet, dance, or whatever else by pure chance seems to be pretty darn unlikely.

Unlikely, but not impossible?

 

[otherprof]

I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of her work at a gallery in Los Angeles last year. What was on the wall was great, in my opinion. I think what Amolitor is true, necessarily true, but it applies to every photographer, from my point of view, except to me. I know how many of my images wind up in the trash. I just don't know how many of Ansel Adams' did.

 

[amolitor]

Unlikely, but not impossible?

All things are possible, including the abrupt conversion of the planet's mass into an equivalent mass of very surprised adult lions. I consider that to be so unlikely as to be negligible as a possibility. That van Gogh "got lucky" in some meaningful way I consider somewhat more likely, but still negligible.

 

[Designer]

van Gogh was not appreciated until he passed.