VIVIAN MAIER RESEARCH
Vivian Maier was born on the 1st February 1926, in New York City United States of America. Vivian died on the 21 April 2009 in Chicago, Illinois.
Vivian was known for her mysterious ways of taking photos, which turns out to be really stunning and something different from normal photographers.
Maier’s talent of taking stunning photos was not recognized by the world until she passed away. John Maloof found Vivian’s work, in an auction shop and there were 100,000 copies of negatives of the things Vivian took photo off.
It was through these copies, John decided to print some of her work and he was stunned by the outcome of Vivian’s work and decided to go deep in to her background and published her work to the world.
Vivian’s work is now recognized around the world, because of the mysterious photos she took, which is very interesting and one of the leading photographers of the 21 Century.
Vivian was a full time Nanny that cherished photography in a high level that she always takes her camera wherever she goes, which was a twin lens reflex camera called Rolleiflex.
Some of Vivian works can be seen as a street photojournalism because her ideas or the way she takes photos was taken on every slight opportunity she gets and she takes shots of anything that caught her attention. She will take shots of people without having to ask them for their consent, before taking the shot.
Vivian idea of taking photos and having her camera with her everywhere she goes makes her work to be different (Unique) from what we see from other photographers and her work is a joy and intriguing to watch, because she brings out inner beauty of what we normally don’t seem to pay much attention to, in our day to day activities. Vivian’s idea of taking photos anywhere makes her work to relate in everyone’s life because she is basically portraying all the things we come across and the things we all experience in our lives are included in her work.
It is of no doubt that Vivian Maier’s work it is one of the bright stars or inspirational photography in the 21st Century. Below are some of Maier’s mysterious and unique works.
This photo can be seen as a street photojournalism and it can be analyze in various ways like, child labour and also it can be very offensive to black people (Racism). For Vivian to take photo like this tells you that she was also a journalist but she expressed it visually. Her work was not based on one aspects of life like other photographers and because of that reason work like this shows the kind of life kids at that time used to live.
This photo is basically about child labour because the little boy is supposed to be in school not to be on the street cleaning shoes. It also tells you that white people were considered to be the most privileged with all the best opportunities; while black kids had no such privilege or opportunity to go school instead they are on the street working.
The choice of color for this photo suits the idea or the visual expression Maier was portraying. The choice of black and white makes complete sense with the idea because it shows how sad and uncivilized it was for a young kid to do cleaning job for a living when other kids (white) are in school.
The black and white color brings out more sadness and makes it more perfect to the visual expression, which Maier portrayed.
Another important thing that tells you more about how weird Maier was because the idea of taking photos of people without their consent is complete weird and she was blinded by the love or passion she had for photography because her life was in danger; certainly not everyone will be alright with the idea of her taking photo of him or her randomly with their consent, she could’ve got herself a slap or her camera broken by someone, she was taking photo of.
The look on the little boy face can tell you that, he was not happy with the idea of Maier taking photo of him. He looked at her angrily that if he had his way or if he was as the same age as Maier he could’ve done something about it or confronted her because his facial expression looked devilish.
This is a photo of a hungry, depressed, unhealthy, hopeless, dirty and poor. This photo, basically shows viewers how other people are living on the street and the condition they are living in which is terrifying for any human to live in this kind of condition.
This looks like he has giving up in life because his facial expression looked completely disgruntled and devastating that he could only wait for death to take his life. The cloth his wearing seems like he has had it on for up to a year or two, you can only imagine what he has been through because he is out of shape, his face looked unbalanced and Vivian portrayed the lives of homeless people or the poor very well and it is very interesting and people or viewers will have a different way of looking at homeless people and perhaps might offer help to them. It is inspiring to see work like this because it tells you and gives you a deep insight about the use of photography and Maier’s work is definitely an inspiration to all.
The background seems simply plain but if you looked reel deep and focused more on the background, you will see that the wall is cracked and it basically relates to the life of the man or the condition he’s living.
The reason why, is because any cracked wall basically tells you that, it just a matter of time, if they don’t do something about it, then the entire building will collapse and so does this man on the photo, if he doesn’t get help about his state of living or health condition, he’ll collapse, like the cracked wall behind him.
It was very clever of Vivian to use the cracked wall as a background and also as a metaphor for the man state of living.
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