One Twenty Five

For my final hoorah in NYC I headed to the Vivian Maier exhibit. I’ve wanted to see this exhibit for over a year and remember looking up the tour dates way-back-when and being so sad I couldn’t go, but (but!) as fate would have it I could (yay for spontaneous trip to NYC).

Truth be told I was a little disappointed with the actual exhibit at the Howard Greenberg Gallery (41 East 57th Street) as I would have liked to see some of her prints made larger, but as it at was free I can’t complain. 

I’ve wanted to share my love of Vivian Maier, her unique story, and her photography with you, Little Blog, for a while now, because she truly is without a doubt one of my favourite photographers.

Maier was born in New York City, but for the majority of her life lead a quiet existence working as a nanny in Chicago. On her own time, she’d head to the streets of Chicago (and the world - on her travels) with a Rolleflex camera around her neck, taking remarkable photographs of everyday life (and self portraits) in the 1960s and 70s.

She took more than 100,000 negatives, developing few herself, and showing nobody else. 

Then in 2007 John Maloof, a real estate agent in Chicago, bought a box of her negatives for $400 at an auction of delinquent storage units. Maloof hoped to find a few photos of a Chicago park for a book he was putting together. He didn’t find what he was looking for, but put some of the negatives on eBay (smart man!) and quickly saw their popularity grow, and watched as the street photography online world praised the anonymous photographer behind them.

It took over 2 years, but in 2009 Maloof got a lucky brake when he found an envelope in one of the negative’s boxes (he had gone back to the auction house and purchased them all) with “Vivian Maier,” on it. A quick google search later lead him to Maier’s obituary posted only a few days before.  (Read full story here)

I don’t know what it is about her photography, perhaps it’s her ability to capture simple human moments, or her extraordinary angles and use of light, but one day, when I get a big, beautiful home of my own, I’m going to be framing some of her portraits and city scenes, because I think her photos are beautiful.

Please check out the Vivian Maier website for more photos and information.