“Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.” – Vivian Maier
Tuhle sobotu začíná half term, týdenní prázdniny. Nemůžu věřit, že jsme už skoro v půlce. Nicméně na hodinách fotografie jsme dostali úkol - vymyslet si téma na mini projekt, který budeme tvořit až do vánoc. Součástí bylo najít si nějakou inspiraci. Tvorba Vivian Maier mě zasáhla už jen díky jejímu příběhu. Co budu fotit jsem se ještě nerozhodla, asi tomu nechám volný průběh. Třeba se nakonec opravdu nechám inspirovat Vivian Maier... Napsala jsem krátký přehled, který mám nalepený ve sketchbooku. Napadlo mě, proč ho nesdílet i zde. Případně o Vivian Maier byl natočený i film.
Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was born in the US but spent most of her childhood in France. She was brought up by her mother and was influenced by Jeanne Bertrand, who had similar past. She then moved back to America and became a nanny. She spent most of the time in NYC or Chicago. She would also travel a lot, mostly alone.
Vivian started off with an amateur Kodak camera. Later she purchased a more expensive camera Rolleiflex and started shooting on a square format. She was fascinated by the lives of poor people, having had financial problems herself. She was lucky to live with a family which would provide her with her own dark room where she was able to develop negatives and print her photographs. After the children she would take care of reached adulthood, she had to move and was now unable to continue with developing and printing her work. Around this time, she also started with colour photography. Her style slowly changed from street photography to abstraction.
From the 90s until the first years of the new millennium, Vivian was struggling with the financial situation. She was even homeless for some periods of time. During these periods she would keep her camera and all the negatives in a storage cabin. In 2007 her cabin was sold in an auction due to her disability to pay rent.
In 2008 she had a head injury, being said to recover. However, she died in 2009, having shot over 100,000 negatives, many of which she had never seen herself. There has been some controversy about whether her work should or should not be printed off and published since we don’t know, how she would like her photographs to be processed. There have been left some notes written by Vivian and those who printed her photos had studied the techniques she used in order to preserve her original style. Vivian Maier is believed to be one of the most important photographers to document the social situation in the US in the 20th century.
bibliography: http://www.vivianmaier.com/about-vivian-maier/
pictures: http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-1/
