She was a photographer that didn't get discovered until after she passed. Obsessed. That's the only way I can describe Vivian Maier. Watching the documentary, studying her work, she was very confidential and very obsessed with creating images and since the discovery of her work, I'm not sure how I would say her style but you see similarities in her work with other photographers at the time. Maier from the work I've studied kept her camera at chest level. which was allowing her to maintain eye contact with the subject. While being a nanny she would take her children to the streets for the sole purpose of doing street photography. When she saw an image she had to capture it. I think it was the same compulsive behavior that made her hoard newspapers
For me, it's impossible to look at her work and not think of her story.
Maiers's work is part of the decades-old genre of street photography, a field that has included such giants as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, and Diane Arbus. (Judging by her collection of books on photography, Maier was likely aware of their work.) These photographers speak to the profoundly democratic impulse to acknowledge that we all have a place—that our stories matter. She took photos of the downtrodden and the well-heeled. She took photos of festive people and people in distress. She took photos of children and the aged. She took photos of whites and blacks (notable, given the times). Her work is marked by serendipity; she appeared to have no agenda but instead captured what she stumbled upon. Joel Meyerowitz who is a renowned photographer in his own right, says of Maier’s images: “They are full of wit and surprise and playful spirit…Her basic decent humanism is evident everywhere in her photographs.”
Very lonely but very phenomenal. Despite the politics and some of the controversy, it's caused she is a hell of a photographer.
