VIVIAN MAIER (1926-2009)
1. Vivian Maier's collection of photographs from the series called "Street Art 1" are extremely well-balanced in black and white. Her first camera was a Kodak Brownie box camera with one shutter speed and no aperture or any type of focus, but most of her early career she used a Rolleiflex:
It's amazing how much of the lights and darks she can expose with such a simple camera. The only downfall to using this camera is she only really had rolls of film and she never developed them. She remained a secret until someone bought them from an auction.
2. Since most of her work is a mystery it is hard to tell what themes or intents she actually had. Although it is easy to tell that she loved what she did and did it often. Maier captured people and moments in time just passing by her. It wasn't even anything of great importance, but they are all aesthetically pleasing and just fun to look at. It seems like she just enjoyed taking pictures of random people that represent the streets she walked.
3. We don't really know much about Vivian Maier or her photography because nothing was developed until a couple years after she had passed away. It seemed like she wanted to be kept a secret; even from the articles I read, the people that encountered her said she was distant, but outspoken. I believe you can see that sort of attitude in her work. In a lot of the photographs she takes, Maier's is at a distance or at least in the background going unnoticed, but the content of the picture is always interesting and sometimes unusual. This photographer really caught my eye for the intense black and white and the playfulness of each picture and the fact that she was an underground artist makes it that much more intriguing.
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