(finding) Vivian Maier?

Aasmund G · Feb 4, 2016

Hi,

Just watched this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2714900/ and this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3252208/

Fascinating story! I am a bit intrigued by all the controversy surrounding her and John Maloof. such as this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...best_documentary_it_was_one_of_the_worst.html

As well as the discussion of whether she is a photographic "great" or not. My personal opinion is that anyone that dedicates a large part of their life and income to photography and takes the trouble of shooting 10s of thousands of fully manual medium format photos with excellent technical skill and without making a cent, is likely to have some excellent work and motivation.

There are some great samples here http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...-unheralded-street-photographer-43399/?no-ist

I for one like her astringent/clinicallly detached perspective.

Opinions? thoughts?

Colin K. Work · Feb 4, 2016

Aasmund G said:
Hi,

Just watched this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2714900/ and this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3252208/

Fascinating story! I am a bit intrigued by all the controversy surrounding her and John Maloof. such as this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...best_documentary_it_was_one_of_the_worst.html

As well as the discussion of whether she is a photographic "great" or not. My personal opinion is that anyone that dedicates a large part of their life and income to photography and takes the trouble of shooting 10s of thousands of fully manual medium format photos with excellent technical skill and without making a cent, is likely to have some excellent work and motivation.

Aasmund G said:
There are some great samples here http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...-unheralded-street-photographer-43399/?no-ist

I for one like her astringent/clinicallly detached perspective.

Opinions? thoughts?

She has some wonderful images. And some not so wonderful.

The problem is, she shot for herself, and apparently had no intention of publishing or even showing her photos to anyone else. Many of her negs were apparently never printed.

So we are left with a collection of work which has been entirely assessed, edited and printed by someone with no real knowledge of the photographer's intentions or interests. This has not happened (I think) with any other significant photographer.

So I have a problem evaluating her as a photographer - we don't know what she thought were her worthwhile images, and which were 'failures'.

I have some 500k images on file - in among that lot, I'm pretty confident there must be a couple of books worth of decent shots. But, were my archive to be discovered by someone who didn't know me well after I'm dead, I very much doubt that person would select the same couple of hundred images that I would have, or processed and cropped them as I would.

Most (serious) photographers are very selective about what they publish, and are particularly nervous about what they may consider sub-standard work, as this can impact badly on how they are perceived.

So, the perception we have of Vivian Meyer as a photographer is via the distortion filter of the person editing her work. Your comment regarding her detached perspective is fair, but that may be only a part of her work ... possibly a minority of shots. We may not have seen her best work, which may not have interested her editors, or perhaps the bulk of her work is actually rather mundane.

As to her skill and motivation ... in my opinion, her work and what I've read of her leaves me with the feeling she was a sad, and slightly disturbed individual. I fear her photography may have been a substitute for something lacking in her life and may have been driven by compulsion as much as a creative muse.

Aasmund G · Feb 4, 2016

Colin K. Work said:
She has some wonderful images. And some not so wonderful.

The problem is, she shot for herself, and apparently had no intention of publishing or even showing her photos to anyone else.

Many of her negs were apparently never printed.

So we are left with a collection of work which has been entirely assessed, edited and printed by someone with no real knowledge of the photographer's intentions or interests. This has not happened (I think) with any other significant photographer.

So I have a problem evaluating her as a photographer - we don't know what she thought were her worthwhile images, and which were 'failures'.

I have some 500k images on file - in among that lot, I'm pretty confident there must be a couple of books worth of decent shots. But, were my archive to be discovered by someone who didn't know me well after I'm dead, I very much doubt that person would select the same couple of hundred images that I would have, or processed and cropped them as I would.

Most (serious) photographers are very selective about what they publish, and are particularly nervous about what they may consider sub-standard work, as this can impact badly on how they are perceived.

So, the perception we have of Vivian Meyer as a photographer is via the distortion filter of the person editing her work. Your comment regarding her detached perspective is fair, but that may be only a part of her work ... possibly a minority of shots. We may not have seen her best work, which may not have interested her editors, or perhaps the bulk of her work is actually rather mundane.

As to her skill and motivation ... in my opinion, her work and what I've read of her leaves me with the feeling she was a sad, and slightly disturbed individual. I fear her photography may have been a substitute for something lacking in her life and may have been driven by compulsion as much as a creative muse.

--
Colin K. Work
www.ckwphoto.com
www.pixstel.com

Apparently she approached a postcard printer in France, so I think there may be reason to believe that she would have wanted to publish her photos if possible. She paid for storage as long as she could afford to.

It is a fair point that we see it through someone else's filter. But on the other hand her photography is not impacted by the response the public would have had to her work. One of the things I have noticed is that most artists seem to make endless series around the same topic once they have a successful run with an idea - ostensibly in order to pay the bills. Thus Vivian Maier is unique in that there is no feedback loop from the perception of the public. - And that is something I appreciate and gives her photos much less of a gimmicky feel than what most photographic artists seem to produce.

Furthermore, if you assume that she would have had some desire to make her work known, then John Maloof has in fact been able to achieve something she herself was not able to do. And the fact that she is reasonably well known now, means that the editing he and others have done have largely been successful. Yes it would have been great if a much larger section of her work would been publicly available. I have shot about 1/10th of your output, i.e. less than 50k shutter actuations, and out of those less than 500 are good. i.e. 1%. If anyone were to judge my photography I would prefer them look at that 1% than the remaining 99%, and similarly I think it would be unfair to judge Vivian Maier (or any other photographer for that matter) for the remainder of their work.

Colin K. Work · Feb 4, 2016

Aasmund G said:
Colin K. Work said:

She has some wonderful images. And some not so wonderful.

The problem is, she shot for herself, and apparently had no intention of publishing or even showing her photos to anyone else.

Many of her negs were apparently never printed.

So we are left with a collection of work which has been entirely assessed, edited and printed by someone with no real knowledge of the photographer's intentions or interests. This has not happened (I think) with any other significant photographer.

So I have a problem evaluating her as a photographer - we don't know what she thought were her worthwhile images, and which were 'failures'.

I have some 500k images on file - in among that lot, I'm pretty confident there must be a couple of books worth of decent shots. But, were my archive to be discovered by someone who didn't know me well after I'm dead, I very much doubt that person would select the same couple of hundred images that I would have, or processed and cropped them as I would.

Most (serious) photographers are very selective about what they publish, and are particularly nervous about what they may consider sub-standard work, as this can impact badly on how they are perceived.

So, the perception we have of Vivian Meyer as a photographer is via the distortion filter of the person editing her work. Your comment regarding her detached perspective is fair, but that may be only a part of her work ... possibly a minority of shots. We may not have seen her best work, which may not have interested her editors, or perhaps the bulk of her work is actually rather mundane.

As to her skill and motivation ... in my opinion, her work and what I've read of her leaves me with the feeling she was a sad, and slightly disturbed individual. I fear her photography may have been a substitute for something lacking in her life and may have been driven by compulsion as much as a creative muse.

Click to expand...

fad · Feb 4, 2016

That's what I said when someone at a gallery opening asked me what I thought of VM.

I started to explain that there are 3 truths about her

her very sad and emotionally constricted/damaged family and life.
the very troubling and arbitrary construction of a marketing campaign calling her an historically important photographer --basically a very attractive myth based on certain romantic ideas of what an artist is going back to the early 19th century.
who she really is as a photographer. As Al Bobkin said: She took some good pictures. So have I.

I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures, but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

The psychological insight in the photos, either of herself or of her subjects, is shallow and not interesting.

The sense of time, history, culture, custom in her photos is banal and hardly a revelation.

Her photos, when good, really do not have much of anything at all to say.

If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

--
Frank
http://sidewalkshadows.com/blog/
Photos look better in Original Size
Shot in downtown Manhattan, unless noted

fad · Feb 4, 2016

Here's a contemporary of VM. Perhaps not as many stellar images. But the evocation and historical awareness of this shot, of a black boy playing "lynch" on the street has an undeniable power one does not soon forget. But it requires a disciplined combination of feeling, thought and imagination on the part of both the photographer and the viewer to process an image like this:

--
Frank
http://sidewalkshadows.com/blog/
Photos look better in Original Size
Shot in downtown Manhattan, unless noted

Aasmund G · Feb 5, 2016

fad said:
I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

"The purpose of art is to create an emotional response in the person that is exposed to that art..."

If you agree with this definition, either John Maloof or she is an artist, judging by your response

fad said:
If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”

I feel a 5 y.o. is as good an art critic as any. That does not mean I do not appreciate more obscure meaning. Certainly it feels fantastic to be get the feeling that one is part of some select group that have understood a deep reference.

fad said:
But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures,

This is a fair point. This argument (if I may rephrase it) is, "if you had given someone an MF film camera, let them lose in the seedy parts of Chicago for 3 decades and let them shoot 150K frames, they are bound to have some good shots.". Not to mention the current infatuation with anything "retro".

Well, that is probably true. But the point is that she did it. She had the commitment. There are plenty of photographers (or other artists, or scientists etc etc. for that matter) who are famous purely because they did something that others did not do. Often times first. I am sure there would be a large amount of fantastic photographers had they only had the means to do so. The majority of the worlds population lives on around $1 per day.

fad said:
but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

My personal view is that great art should be timeless, and not have to be judged in the context of their time.

fad said:
If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

I would rather not rank photographers saying she is better or worse than someone else, I do not take a call on whether she is part of "photographic history" or not, but I do think she is a cut above the vast majority of current professional photographers.

fad said:
--
Frank
http://sidewalkshadows.com/blog/

You have some good shots there!

fad said:
Photos look better in Original Size
Shot in downtown Manhattan, unless noted

Colin K. Work · Feb 5, 2016

Aasmund G said:
fad said:

I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

Click to expand...

"The purpose of art is to create an emotional response in the person that is exposed to that art..."

If you agree with this definition, either John Maloof or she is an artist, judging by your response

Aasmund G said:

If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

Click to expand...

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”

I feel a 5 y.o. is as good an art critic as any. That does not mean I do not appreciate more obscure meaning. Certainly it feels fantastic to be get the feeling that one is part of some select group that have understood a deep reference.

Hmm - that quote has been variously attributed (Pete Seeger, Albert Einstein) but I'm not sure it applies to "Art" - surely great art is supposed to be "complex". It may have an immediate appeal to a 5 year old, but if that's ALL it has, then it is ultimately unsatisfying. Art should stimulate, provoke etc. - it is more than just 'surface'.

Aasmund G said:
Aasmund G said:

But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures,

Click to expand...

This is a fair point. This argument (if I may rephrase it) is, "if you had given someone an MF film camera, let them lose in the seedy parts of Chicago for 3 decades and let them shoot 150K frames, they are bound to have some good shots.". Not to mention the current infatuation with anything "retro".

Well, that is probably true. But the point is that she did it. She had the commitment. There are plenty of photographers (or other artists, or scientists etc etc. for that matter) who are famous purely because they did something that others did not do. Often times first. I am sure there would be a large amount of fantastic photographers had they only had the means to do so. The majority of the worlds population lives on around $1 per day.

That equates to about 5,000 images/year ... not really a prodigious output, even by the standards of the time. There will have been plenty of other hobbyists shooting more who remain "undiscovered". Question - would there be such a fuss about Mayer without the back story? This is perhaps the cleverness of Mahoof. Collections of negs are found all the time (I've got my grandfather's and father's slides) - but nothing more is heard of them. It is, perhaps the manner in which he 'marketed' them which has created the interest. Note that a number of galleries dismissed the collection when he first approached them.

Aasmund G said:
Aasmund G said:

but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

Click to expand...

My personal view is that great art should be timeless, and not have to be judged in the context of their time.

I agree with you here - I'm not sure what Frank is getting at, unless suggesting a special case for photography. It is almost a truism that great artists are never appreciated in their time, and are often working outside the mainstream (Van Gogh immediately comes to mind).

Aasmund G said:
Aasmund G said:

If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

Click to expand...

I would rather not rank photographers saying she is better or worse than someone else, I do not take a call on whether she is part of "photographic history" or not, but I do think she is a cut above the vast majority of current professional photographers.

I would be unreasonable to compare her to "professional photographers" - pros have time and budgets to consider. Only an elite few can make a living at photography as an art.

How does she measure up to the many gifted amateurs, who walk the streets on a daily basis (we have a number who contribute to this forum)?

Mayer benefits from presentation - she has a great back story, and has had her work shown to us in a very professional fashion (well produced books, prestigious exhibitions) - none of which she has had to 'earn'. There is a bit of "the emperor's new clothes" about this - we are told she is good, the packaging is as if she were a recognised great, so we are predisposed to lower our critical faculties when looking at her work.

I admit to going as so far as to buy one of the books, and yes, there are some good pics, but ultimately I was disappointed ... it just didn't stack up to the work of many other photographers of her time.

Put it this way - if it was a photo competition and her work was placed amongst a selection of work by published contemporaries (all anonymously of course), how do you think she'd do?

Joe Pineapples II · Feb 5, 2016

Aasmund G said:
Hi,

Just watched this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2714900/ and this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3252208/

Fascinating story! I am a bit intrigued by all the controversy surrounding her and John Maloof. such as this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...best_documentary_it_was_one_of_the_worst.html

As well as the discussion of whether she is a photographic "great" or not. My personal opinion is that anyone that dedicates a large part of their life and income to photography and takes the trouble of shooting 10s of thousands of fully manual medium format photos with excellent technical skill and without making a cent, is likely to have some excellent work and motivation.

There are some great samples here http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-...-unheralded-street-photographer-43399/?no-ist

I for one like her astringent/clinicallly detached perspective.

Opinions? thoughts?

For some reason she seems to attract fairly hostile responses on typical amateur Internet forums, which says more about the psychology of those forums than telling us much about her photography, I suspect. Most of the photography you find in these forums is imitative in nature, which is not in itself bad; but it is not art and never will be.

It is fair to comment that the somewhat enigmatic aspects to her story have been a bit hyped, in the later marketing of her work, but I don't think we can hold that against the photographer herself.

What jumps out at me about her actual photography is that clearly she was someone with an original vision of her own that she was driven to express and communicate, and that shines out clearly through her photographs; we recognise immediately the signature of an artist.

Joe

The Davinator · Feb 5, 2016

I think like anything, that it comes down to personal taste. I have seen some great photos taken by her. That said, I find as a whole that her work is rather mundane and average.

Limburger · Feb 5, 2016

IMHO she is there with the big ones.

In many photos a style quite recognizable (below eye level shooting up).

If looking at photos of somebody inspires you than it is a good photographer.

Her themes (not style) make me think of Robert Frank (I also like).

Aasmund G · Feb 5, 2016

Joe Pineapples II said:
For some reason she seems to attract fairly hostile responses on typical amateur Internet forums, which says more about the psychology of those forums than telling us much about her photography, I suspect. Most of the photography you find in these forums is imitative in nature, which is not in itself bad; but it is not art and never will be.

It is fair to comment that the somewhat enigmatic aspects to her story have been a bit hyped, in the later marketing of her work, but I don't think we can hold that against the photographer herself.

Couldn't agree more! The fact that she is over-hyped doesn't make her work bad, it is like the old adage "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you."

fad · Feb 5, 2016

Limburger said:
IMHO she is there with the big ones.

In many photos a style quite recognizable (below eye level shooting up).

If looking at photos of somebody inspires you than it is a good photographer.

Her themes (not style) make me think of Robert Frank (I also like).

Limburger · Feb 5, 2016

fad said:
Limburger said:

IMHO she is there with the big ones.

In many photos a style quite recognizable (below eye level shooting up).

If looking at photos of somebody inspires you than it is a good photographer.

Her themes (not style) make me think of Robert Frank (I also like).

Click to expand...

Joe Pineapples II · Feb 6, 2016

fad said:
I was just reading in The Radical Camera that what Robert Frank did to social photography in the US was to make it metaphorical. An interesting insight.

But VM did not have a metaphorical bone in her body.

So where do you see the similarity?

I don't think anyone is suggesting to place Vivian Maier's work at the level of 'The Americans', but I wonder about the basis for you making such an absolute statement. While the use of metaphor in Robert Frank's photography is well-documented, don't you find for example the repeated motif of half-seen figures, cut-off figures, and the use of reflections in VM's photographs, especially in her self-portraits, to be quite an interesting metaphor for her own role, also suggesting a considerable degree of self-reflection.

In the end she has been given significant recognition for her work, which is no mean achievement.

Joe

Limburger · Feb 6, 2016

Joe Pineapples II said:
fad said:

I was just reading in The Radical Camera that what Robert Frank did to social photography in the US was to make it metaphorical. An interesting insight.

But VM did not have a metaphorical bone in her body.

So where do you see the similarity?

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is suggesting to place Vivian Maier's work at the level of 'The Americans', but I wonder about the basis for you making such an absolute statement. While the use of metaphor in Robert Frank's photography is well-documented, don't you find for example the repeated motif of half-seen figures, cut-off figures, and the use of reflections in VM's photographs, especially in her self-portraits, to be quite an interesting metaphor for her own role, also suggesting a considerable degree of self-reflection.

In the end she has been given significant recognition for her work, which is no mean achievement.

Joe

Self portraits (or at least pictures of yourself) this makes me think of Cindy Sherman (I also like)..

--
Cheers Mike
Register and vote.

Limburger · Feb 6, 2016

fad said:
That's what I said when someone at a gallery opening asked me what I thought of VM.

I started to explain that there are 3 truths about her

her very sad and emotionally constricted/damaged family and life.

the very troubling and arbitrary construction of a marketing campaign calling her an historically important photographer --basically a very attractive myth based on certain romantic ideas of what an artist is going back to the early 19th century.

who she really is as a photographer. As Al Bobkin said: She took some good pictures. So have I.

I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures, but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

The psychological insight in the photos, either of herself or of her subjects, is shallow and not interesting.

The sense of time, history, culture, custom in her photos is banal and hardly a revelation.

Her photos, when good, really do not have much of anything at all to say.

If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

--
Frank
http://sidewalkshadows.com/blog/
Photos look better in Original Size
Shot in downtown Manhattan, unless noted

Put up the top ten VM shots to your top ten.

You got a big mouth...

Show us the way

IMHO you're Hemingwayed and talk a lot of ~~CENSOR~~.

--
Cheers Mike
Register and vote.

The Davinator · Feb 6, 2016

Limburger said:
fad said:

That's what I said when someone at a gallery opening asked me what I thought of VM.

I started to explain that there are 3 truths about her

her very sad and emotionally constricted/damaged family and life.

the very troubling and arbitrary construction of a marketing campaign calling her an historically important photographer --basically a very attractive myth based on certain romantic ideas of what an artist is going back to the early 19th century.

who she really is as a photographer. As Al Bobkin said: She took some good pictures. So have I.

I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures, but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

The psychological insight in the photos, either of herself or of her subjects, is shallow and not interesting.

The sense of time, history, culture, custom in her photos is banal and hardly a revelation.

Her photos, when good, really do not have much of anything at all to say.

If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

Click to expand...

Limburger · Feb 6, 2016

The Davinator said:
Limburger said:

fad said:

That's what I said when someone at a gallery opening asked me what I thought of VM.

I started to explain that there are 3 truths about her

her very sad and emotionally constricted/damaged family and life.

the very troubling and arbitrary construction of a marketing campaign calling her an historically important photographer --basically a very attractive myth based on certain romantic ideas of what an artist is going back to the early 19th century.

who she really is as a photographer. As Al Bobkin said: She took some good pictures. So have I.

I didn't get very far into the 2nd topic before he started moving away. It turns out, he did not really want the truth. And you don't either, I'm sure. Because the truth has no allure for you.

If you want the detailed reasons, do a search here and on Slate's comments where I laid them out.

But the real truth is that Street Photography is hard. It's hard to do, and it's hard to understand and be an intelligent connoisseur of. It's beauty is that it seems very simple, but it's not at all simple in reality.

But the myth of VM is easy. Wow, all that's required to appreciate SP is to embrace the myth of the nanny.

She made some good pictures, but she did not exist as a photographer in her time. All her publication and printing is of our time. Her photos are insignificant, no matter how good or bad they might be.

Why are they insignificant?

They are insignificant in the history of photography, since she was not part of it.

The psychological insight in the photos, either of herself or of her subjects, is shallow and not interesting.

The sense of time, history, culture, custom in her photos is banal and hardly a revelation.

Her photos, when good, really do not have much of anything at all to say.

If you think that SP should be purely pictorial and sterile, with no sex, no drama, no humor, no sense of history or time, no conflict, no intelligence, no connection with culture - high or low, with no personal artistic vision, no psychological insight, no love for, or hatred for, the human condition --then she's your gal.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The Davinator · Feb 6, 2016

Just because you are incapable of understanding it, does not make it BS.

(finding) Vivian Maier?

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