There was a great BBC Imagine documentary on the other night about Vivian Maier, the loner nanny who took thousands of photographs, mostly street scenes from around the Chicago area.
The photography itself was really high quality, but of course the most fascinating part of the story was that she kept the photographs to herself, and was so driven in her need to take them, expressing herself and capturing her own (and her surroundings) history. I have always had a great admiration for anyone who just does their own thing, not caring what others think (hence my love of Keef), so this was right up my street.
Since her death in 2009, there has been a huge demand for her prints and originals, plus gallery displays and coffee table books, but you would like to think that she would still have had some success if her work had been unearthed earlier. Now that she has ceased to be (as The Pythons would say), she will always be the elusive loner character, and her worth will probably only increase, as her cult following grows.
Maier kept her photography work in various storage containers, which was then bought unseen when she could not meet her storage bills, with the consequence that it was divided up among innocents, collectors, and get rich quick charlatans.
Some of the images and information can be found here and here, and the BBC doc is here.
I may post some of her street photography at a later date, as l particularly like the ones with billboard or theater writing in the background, but for the meantime, above are some of her self portraits.
How very reflective.
toodle pip
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