Vivian Maier

[skysh4rk]

That's a good point I hadn't considered. And perhaps why there's been less colour work shown than B+W so far?

I thought that I heard the main reason why some of the colour work has been so slow to come out is due to the difficulty of developing the long expired slide film. Unlike black and white, colour positive film would be subject to extreme colour shifts.

Moreover, I'm not even sure if the colour slide film that she shot used the modern E6 process, which would further complicate matters, as it could be very difficult to source the necessary chemicals. If she shot anything on Kodachrome, then I'm not sure what they would do, as there is currently no way to process that at all.

 

[s162216]

I thought that I heard the main reason why some of the colour work has been so slow to come out is due to the difficulty of developing the long expired slide film. Unlike black and white, colour positive film would be subject to extreme colour shifts.

Moreover, I'm not even sure if the colour slide film that she shot used the modern E6 process, which would further complicate matters, as it could be very difficult to source the necessary chemicals. If she shot anything on Kodachrome, then I'm not sure what they would do, as there is currently no way to process that at all.

From what I remember reading she used Ektachrome after she stopped using her Rolleiflex in the late 70's, the E-4 process films were phased out in 1976 (partly because the reversal agent was highly toxic) when E-6 was introduced. Even if she did use E-4 process films, their not too complex to develop as Kodak have actually got a technical publication listing how to make the E-4 process chemicals (see http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/cis111/cis111.pdf), which were not discontinued until 1996 because of a legal agreement to supply them for 30 years for development of Kodak EI colour infra-red film (which preceded the more well known and recently completely gone Kodak EIR).

 

[skysh4rk]

From what I remember reading she used Ektachrome after she stopped using her Rolleiflex in the late 70's, the E-4 process films were phased out in 1976 (partly because the reversal agent was highly toxic) when E-6 was introduced. Even if she did use E-4 process films, their not too complex to develop as Kodak have actually got a technical publication listing how to make the E-4 process chemicals (see http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/cis111/cis111.pdf), which were not discontinued until 1996 because of a legal agreement to supply them for 30 years for development of Kodak EI colour infra-red film (which preceded the more well known and recently completely gone Kodak EIR).

Well, even if the chemicals and processing aren't problematic, there is no doubt that long expired slide film is far more difficult to salvage than expired black and white or even colour negative. Even modern emulsions that have only relatively recently expired (i.e., <10 years) can suffer from some serious colour shifting, let alone film rolls that expired several decades ago. Not only that, she lived in cities with warm, humid summers and stored the films in simple boxes in storage facilities without any temperature control, which would make salvaging the latent images even trickier.

How stable were those late 1970s emulsions? How easy would it be to compensate in development for the age of the film? No doubt that a few rolls would likely need to be sacrificed to even begin to determine an appropriate developmental process for those films.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Certainly I agree with that, but the photographer would have an input. In this case it's had no input from Vivian into the selection of the images chosen to be made public.

This is the case for all deceased photographers and artists. very few if any preselect and destroy substandard work.
What we eventually see is someone's selection. That selection might be thematic or what they themselves have been given access to. It is rarely what we might have chosen to see ourselves.

 

[Steve Smith]

I read an article in a magazine yesterday which raised a point which I think shows that she regarded her photographs as more than just snapshots.

It said that she continued to send her negatives to her French printer even after she moved to the US as she trusted him and liked the way he printed her work. There must have been hundreds of competent printers in the US which she could have used but she considered the extra effort and expense to be worth it.


Steve.

 

[s162216]

Well, even if the chemicals and processing aren't problematic, there is no doubt that long expired slide film is far more difficult to salvage than expired black and white or even colour negative. Even modern emulsions that have only relatively recently expired (i.e., <10 years) can suffer from some serious colour shifting, let alone film rolls that expired several decades ago. Not only that, she lived in cities with warm, humid summers and stored the films in simple boxes in storage facilities without any temperature control, which would make salvaging the latent images even trickier.

How stable were those late 1970s emulsions? How easy would it be to compensate in development for the age of the film? No doubt that a few rolls would likely need to be sacrificed to even begin to determine an appropriate developmental process for those films.

According to Film Rescue International (who specialise in recovering very old films and those with obsolete processes), for Ektachrome there's usually a high chance of it producing "recognisable" pictures (i.e detail is clearly visible) and "fair" quality. They don't specifically mention the age, but I get the impression that the 70's onwards Ekachrome has a much higher chance of being recovered as they list "Ektachrome" (i.e those with the original re-exposure reversal type E-1 to E-3 processes from ~1942 to 1966) and "Ektachrome-X" (E-4 process from 1966 to 1977) films as having a "percent recognisable" of 80 and 93 respectively, with Ektachrome generally being of poor quality, and Ektachrome-X fair quality. See a short way down their FAQ for the information: http://www.filmrescue.com/faq/.

They also have a special process where they can develop as a B&W image first, and then by additional steps process in colour if the B&W produces good results; either way I think there's a very good chance of her Ektachrome being recovered even if perhaps not all of them will be in colour.