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It’s easy to marvel at the work of Vivian Maier and be in complete awe of what we see. Many of us might be compelled to call her one of the greatest street photographers to ever live. Maier was a nanny when she was alive. And to that, I’d add that she was the mother and caregiver to so many of us who came after her and who needed it to help us become inspired by everything around us. John Maloof discovered her work a bit over a decade ago, and, completely unrelated, the world has been burning. But staring at the photographs Vivian Maier shot reminds us to fall in love with what’s around us every day. It does this with the duality of reminding the most analytical of us that she was an incredibly lonely woman.
You can purchase the photobook Vivian Maier over at Amazon.
When Fotografiska New York put on the exhibit of her work, I attended the member preview with a friend. After looking at the images, I still debate if they should’ve been put out like that without addressing the deep loneliness that the woman had, and that’s evident when you think about the perspective of her photography. The images, in my opinion, should be studied in private unless spoken about in the obvious motivations.
Private study is what the book Vivian Maier does for us all. You start with the stark, yellow cover that stands out in a way that the only yellow-colored character arrives in the movie Sin City. It’s a major contrast to the rest of the book — and it pulls you in to take caution while paying extra attention.
If you flip through the pages and read the text, you’ll be in for an aesthetically pleasing experience. First off, none of the images are split down the middle of the fold. This does a lot of respect to her images and makes each photo have its own adequate amount of real estate space. It’s beautiful to behold, and in many ways, it feels like a respectful eulogy to the work she’s done and all the photographers she touched.
Note that the black-and-white photos take up much more real estate on the images than the color images. This could perhaps be because of the resolution, as early color imagery was quite a headache for even the CIA.
The photos start out with a section that I don’t think is needed: self-portraits. I’m not sure how many times I really want to see someone in a mirror or a shadow. There’s enough of it on social media—and I’m not picking up a photo book to be shown the same thing. However, I appreciate the important statement about loneliness and wanting to document yourself in a way that you feel confident about.
Perhaps I’m even less tolerant of it as a low-vision magazine editor. In my blind eyes, this section is the weakest section of the book and should’ve been saved for the end, if anything.
However, we can’t deny that her work was good. “I often wonder how Vivian might have benefited from a sense of community or at least positive feedback,” said Charlie Siskel, who made the documentary along with John Maloof, in an email to me. “As we showed in the film, as solitary as Vivian was (and as complicated), she still knew she was an artist and knew her work was good.”
But then you start to get into the really solid stuff. This book contains images from Vivian Maier that were done out in public. They include street photography, random gestures, and a section called cinematic. These photographs remind us of what every other street photographer shoots these days — or at least some version of it from back in the day. With that said, there’s a combination of people interacting with one another and sharing emotional moments. Even more intriguing is her study of forms and geometry as they appear in front of her. This is aided by her use of consistent black and white in many scenes, which takes the distraction of color away. But there is no study of public irony, humor, etc.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the images won’t bring a smile to your face. There’s an entire section of photographs of children, and some of those are housed within the cinematic section, too. I remember my parents, uncles, and aunts taking images of me crying when I was younger and looking at them with fondness. I’m still not a parent at 37 years old, and personally, I’m not sure why I’d shoot those images instead of helping the child or excusing myself from the situation if the parents were around.
But many things are present throughout the book: her love, admiration, and voyeurism. They remind us that there’s clear evidence that she probably wanted to interact with people more but was perhaps shy.
I think Vivian Maier is a book photographers should purchase as a means of studying their own work and seeing how they see themselves in what they make. It should also make them question lots of their own work, knowing what was said about her. From there, photographers could build their own legacy.
We give Vivian Maier 4 out of 5 stars. Want a copy? Check it out on Amazon.