“I’m a sort of spy”
Vivian Maier
Most people when they realize a camera is pointed in their
direction put on their photo face, strike the pose they believe represents
their persona. It is the kiss of death for the Street photographer. The fleeting
moment the photographer saw that prompted the shot has been subverted by the
subject.
The American, quasi-French street photographer Vivian Maier had the perfect cover in
the best John le Carré
tradition. Who would suspect the non-descript woman with a couple of kids in
tow was a strett photographer? Was that a camera hanging around her neck? Such was Maier’s mode of
operation.
A
nanny for most of her adult life, Maier would take her charges on long walks, often in the seedier parts of town. They were well aware these walks were not really
for their benefit but to take photographs. As one of her “children”, Sarah Ludington, nee Matthews, recalls "I liked the walks.
By the end, I would be in pain. We were walking probably 10 miles which when
you're little is a long way, but often she would take us to the beach at the
end." Her brother John adds “I always got the feeling that what she
wanted to do was take photos and hauling the kids around was just a chore."
A loner, Maier has been described by those who
crossed per path as uncompromising yet playful, curious yet intensely private,
and aloof to the point of callousness, even cruelty. To which could be added confident as
the over 100,000 undeveloped negatives discovered upon her death attest. She
felt no need to check the results of her days exploits. Or, perhaps, she just
didn’t care, being a part of the unforgiving moment was enough for her.
But the quality of
the work Maier bequeathed to the future would suggest otherwise. Her
photographs are good, very good indeed and she was aware that they couldn’t really
be changed after the fact. Like all great artists a sixth sense told her if she
had captured her vision.
A retrospective exhbition of her work Vivian Maier - Street Photographer is currently on show at Amsterdam's Foam Photography Museum until the 1st of February.
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