Documentary: Finding Vivian Maier

During her lifetime, Vivian Maier took over 150,00 photographs. Thousands of rolls of film were never developed. Her work was discovered by accident after she fell behind with payments on the storage lockers where she kept the rolls of film, cine film and negatives in Chicago. Two years before she died the contents of the lockers was auctioned off to various buyers. Real estate agent John Maloof has acquired one of the larges collections of Maier’s work, and this forms the bias for the documentary Finding Vivian Maier. The film has been nominated for the best documentary feature at the 2015 academy awards. 

I think people are interested in her work first of all. She captured her day-to-day life in a very creative way and her images are very well composed. As there is such a vast amount of variety of images shot in a contemporary way, such as portraits and landscapes, I think there is something for everyone. What was even more interesting about Vivian Maier was the fact that she never showed her photographs to anyone, and yet she wouldn't be seen without her camera. Nobody had even taken interest in what she photographed. The amount of images she had taken and collected during her life was incredible, and for them to go completely unnoticed, considering they were beautiful and she was just a nanny, is a story people was to invest into.

My favourite image. Demonstrating her contemporary style and eye for detail.

During the documentary, I had the impression that Vivian was an incredibly private person and wouldn't have liked all of this notoriety her images are giving her. Some people believe that she is being exploited and that the money from her images aren't going to the right person. Especially since she never had much money herself, being a Nanny wasn't a generously paying job. However, a comment said by a women who knew her for many years stood out to me as I felt it was very true after watching and hearing about her. It was said that Vivian would not have liked all of this fame, but would have loved to know that her work was appreciated, even just by one person. You don't take photographs to never be seen, especially if you take over 150,000. You want to hear good things about your work, and so I agree that Vivian would have been happy to see her images get the praise they deserve. She also was in contact with someone who she spoke with about printing her work, exactly how she wanted it. 


I think Vivian Maier's work demonstrates the kind of person she was. Even though there are so many different images to clearly pinpoint her 'style', I think overall it displays her love of life, and her way of living. I believe she was very content in her position, despite always being moved onto a new family as they began to grow 'sick' of her. She was always welcomed into a family and was given a roof over her head, and chance to explore the world. She photographed many aspects of life from the good and bad, the boring, the beautiful, her habbits and details that no other person could see.