Vivian Maier Documentary

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just watched the documentary finding Vivian Maier after having a browse to see what was on XBMC mdia player and came across it.

Intriguing to say the least. started out quite positive and mysterious but as it went on uncovered some uncomfortable "truths" about her.
clearly someone who was very much of an eccentric nature.
the discovery of her work makes me wonder though.
was she really an exceptional photographer whos work deserves the posthumous recognition or was she just an oddball who liked to take thousands and thousands of pictures.

Its very easy to look at her work thats been displayed that she had a great eye for capturing people, a huge talent etc etc but considering the number of images taken is that really true or is it just from the sheer volume of images taken ( many which were not even developed ) that amongst them a small percentage will capture a captive audience and because of the nature in which they were discovered attract the attention they have.
certainly her work and images captured the era she lived in and the places she travelled to and are an outstanding documentation of the time.
 
Dont forget she never asked for any of this,she was just a person who enjoyed photographer and took a fair few photos some that turn out to to be very good,if we can learn anything from her it is to get out with our camera.
Plus didn't HCB say forget your first 10,000 shots & Eugene Smith who was respected as one of the world greats,was sent on a job for 3 weeks in Pittsburgh steelworks,3 years later and over 36,000 photos later,only 36 of the photo were ever publish.

And does it matter to much about anything about her personal life o_O
 
I am from the U.S and can't seem to find that movie anywhere. As far as getting good shots because she took so many, imo I would say no that's not how it works. If you don't know how to shot sure you will come across some lucky good shots but not many. From what I understood she had a lot of very good shots. But of course I haven't seen the movie yet so I could be completely wrong. lol
 
dean messenger said:
... but as it went on uncovered some uncomfortable "truths" about her.
clearly someone who was very much of an eccentric nature.
...
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I am not sure what you mean by uncomfortable truths, perhaps you would like to expand on this. On eccentricity, she seems to have led a very ordinary life, her eccentricity being that she was a keen photographer and I cannot see that she can be criticised for that in this place!
 
sphexx said:
I am not sure what you mean by uncomfortable truths, perhaps you would like to expand on this. On eccentricity, she seems to have led a very ordinary life, her eccentricity being that she was a keen photographer and I cannot see that she can be criticised for that in this place!
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I was also wondering what is so "uncomfortable" about someone being eccentric? A lot of the worlds most talented people often seem to have an "eccentric" nature - better to be eccentric than plain boring and "ordinary"!
 
she was a nanny for many years but some of the and as i stated in quotes "truths" ( because there is little evidence to back it up other than from the mouths of those alleged.. she was rather a split personailty with a temper.. one child she nannied for claimed she was force fed and that maier pinned her down and spoon force fed her and was sacked from the job when the father found out. another reported she used to lock them in a basement or cupboard.
this was what made the documentary so odd in that it started out as a journey exploring who she was and all was positive about her but towards then end a few "dark" secrets and stories started coming out which detracted a little as to what the discovery was about which was really her work.
As for never asking for any of this , im not sure that was the case. she did actually write a letter to a printer in France ( what seemed to be a possible home/family location ) asking to print more of her work and it seems she had quite a number done as postcards there and clearly knew what she was doing . so there was some obvious reasoning behind her taking the photos and it was very strange how on one hand she wanted her work shown and on the other remained so reclusive about it.

theres a snippet here
http://www.vivianmaier.com/film-finding-vivian-maier/

i found it on xbmc but you might find it on youtube or other media sources
 
shaylou said:
I am from the U.S and can't seem to find that movie anywhere. As far as getting good shots because she took so many, imo I would say no that's not how it works. If you don't know how to shot sure you will come across some lucky good shots but not many. From what I understood she had a lot of very good shots. But of course I haven't seen the movie yet so I could be completely wrong. lol
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She was reportedly not very wealthy, a nanny's job not being highly paid.
She spent most of what she earned in photography, obviously much of it on film.
Bear in mind the Rollieflex she shot with only took 12 pictures on a roll of film, and he she had to make every shot count.
In the BBC "Imagine" documentary one guy shows a complete sequence of 12 shots she took on one roll of film, and they are like a diary of her movements on the day.
All perfectly exposed, she seems to have just taken one picture and then moved on, not like today where someone can shoot dozens of images of the same subject.
I think she had an eye for the "decisive moment" which is what makes her so interesting.
 
dean messenger said:
she was a nanny for many years but some of the and as i stated in quotes "truths" ( because there is little evidence to back it up other than from the mouths of those alleged.. she was rather a split personailty with a temper.. one child she nannied for claimed she was force fed and that maier pinned her down and spoon force fed her and was sacked from the job when the father found out. another reported she used to lock them in a basement or cupboard.
this was what made the documentary so odd in that it started out as a journey exploring who she was and all was positive about her but towards then end a few "dark" secrets and stories started coming out which detracted a little as to what the discovery was about which was really her work.
As for never asking for any of this , im not sure that was the case. she did actually write a letter to a printer in France ( what seemed to be a possible home/family location ) asking to print more of her work and it seems she had quite a number done as postcards there and clearly knew what she was doing . so there was some obvious reasoning behind her taking the photos and it was very strange how on one hand she wanted her work shown and on the other remained so reclusive about it.

theres a snippet here
http://www.vivianmaier.com/film-finding-vivian-maier/

i found it on xbmc but you might find it on youtube or other media sources
Click to expand...

Yes in her very early days she try to sell a few of her local shots (landscape),as postcards in an shop in France,as for the other stuff again story from another time and age.
 
I don't care what anyone says she was a magnificent photographer and is up there with the best. I love her pictures and have done since I first saw them.

Class.
 
I started watching it last night but did not finish it. I need to finish it if you feel like her work is "up there with the best". I personally did not see anything that would lead me to this opinion but I haven't seen but half of the movie.
 
Just watched it,still love her photos.

I can understand her a bit more about her, for the time she was with those family,(she didn't seem to have much of a family herself) they sort of became her family,but i think she always knew that she would be rejected at some point as its was always just an employment relationship.
Also a camera can be a good place to hide yourself behind,and maybe something in her past made want to hide herself.
 
Interesting thoughts, especially as no-one really knew her, or interviewed her. Let's not forget you cannot libel, or slander, the dead, so if it makes for a bit of controversy, promotes the film/tv show/documentary...
Opinions are being made based on her work which has been chosen to be published, from a huge collection. So it's one persons choice which of her images you get to see.
I find her work interesting, thoughtful, certainly documenting and as worthy as some of th eother New York photographers
 
I just finished the movie and I must say, the people that knew her sure didn't paint a very flattering picture of her. She sounded like a mean and very odd women with many demons. As far as her work goes, I haven't seen enough to make my personal judgement but I will say that I saw a couple that dropped my jaw in amazement. I mean they were brilliant in so many ways. But I did see a lot of snap shots as well. I am looking forward to exploring her work in more detail and seeing if she was a good photographer or a great one.
 
John Maloof owns the images, he's found an interesting niche and income stream from them. I have the Vivian Mayer book, with a foreword by Geoff Dyer. An interesting read followed by pages of images
 
Byker28i said:
John Maloof owns the images, he's found an interesting niche and income stream from them. I have the Vivian Mayer book, with a foreword by Geoff Dyer. An interesting read followed by pages of images
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According to the BBC "Imagine" documentary on Vivian Maier, John Maloof owns "the lion's share" of her images. In the "Finding Vivian Maier" film he says he has "about 100,000 negatives and (at the time) about 2,000 rolls of undeveloped film." He may be earning money from selling prints, but as he pointed out in the film, the work (developing & scanning and printing) has to be financed somehow.
I didn't get the impression that John Maloof was out simply to make money, but he said he wanted to get her recognised as a great photographer - something that the "establishment" are still unwilling to do.
They are working through developing batches of the films, but I've seen various figures quoted for her total output, somewhere around 150,000 images.
The other people who have samples of her work are not selling, so it's unlikely ever to be a complete collection again.

They did show that letter she wrote to the photographers in France about them printing her work, but it was unclear to me exactly when the letter was written.
In the letter she says "I have a lot of images and I think they are pretty good" so she was obviously aware of the quality of her work and wanted to be seen more widely.

In both films people summed up by saying they thought she would like the fact that her photos were being seen and appreciated, but would have been horrified by the personal publicity that had been generated.
 
shaylou said:
I just finished the movie and I must say, the people that knew her sure didn't paint a very flattering picture of her. She sounded like a mean and very odd women with many demons. As far as her work goes, I haven't seen enough to make my personal judgement but I will say that I saw a couple that dropped my jaw in amazement. I mean they were brilliant in so many ways. But I did see a lot of snap shots as well. I am looking forward to exploring her work in more detail and seeing if she was a good photographer or a great one.
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Yep kind of odd,but the BBC doc some of the family said she was like Mary Poppins on this one not so flattering,i should say as usually it probably somewhere in between :)
 
Deffo some good shots so maybe it was more than just machine gunning shoot everything luck.

Would like to see the film one day if I can find it.
 
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Vivian Maier film released on DVD.
One for your Christmas list?
The DVD/Blu Ray of "Finding Vivian Maier" is to be released on Nov 10th.

The official trailer for the documentary film, Finding Vivian Maier is on YouTube.
 
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