Vivian Maier, street photographer and nanny

[bakubo]

Wonderful story. Jay Shefsky for the Chicago Tonight show in Chicago tells the story of Vivian Maier and the guy who is scanning her old negatives.

http://youtu.be/HWEDOnBfDUI

[Dr. Harout]

Thanks for the link Henry. It's amazing.

[bakubo]

Thanks for the link Henry. It's amazing.

I really enjoyed it. I imagine that most of our digital photos will not survive like her negatives did though.

[Birma]

Amazing story, an amazing life, and amazing pictures . Thanks for the link Henry.

[Greg Beetham]

I just found time to watch the video, great find Henry, it's amazing that she remained in obscurity while she was alive, she was a great photographer, her photos are a treasure trove of life in an earlier time. That guy has a huge project in front of him, there are large boxes of rolls of film not even developed yet as well as the scanning of existing negatives.
Greg

[bakubo]

I just found time to watch the video, great find Henry, it's amazing that she remained in obscurity while she was alive, she was a great photographer, her photos are a treasure trove of life in an earlier time. That guy has a huge project in front of him, there are large boxes of rolls of film not even developed yet as well as the scanning of existing negatives.

Yes, scanning all that film is a big project. It looks like she took care of her negatives so I imagine they are in really good shape. I don't think ICE works with B&W film so it would be a huge job to clean up scans. Even good, clean negatives though can have dust spots and it isn't clear whether he is going to lots of trouble to prevent them pre-scanning.

Buying film and getting it processed was a major expense that it is easy to forget now that most of us use digital. In 1993 I traveled in Africa for 10 weeks and carried 125 rolls of slide film with me (I took them out of the boxes and also out of the plastic cans to save bulk and weight) and had them in big ziplock plastic bags. Then when I got home I got them processed. My recollection is that the total cost for the film and processing was about $1600 ($2500 in 2011 dollars). Think what $2500 will get you now (well, what it can get you in the U.S.). For the West Papua New Guinea (Irian Jaya) trip in 1995 I used about 24 rolls of film in a month. I guess that was about $375 ($555 in 2011 dollars) including the processing.

[Dr. Harout]

Thanks for the link Henry. It's amazing.

I really enjoyed it. I imagine that most of our digital photos will not survive like her negatives did though.

On the contrary, I think digital will survive much more than film.
Why do you think so?

[aster]

Hi Henry,

That is a good find. At some point I'm sure either MoMA or a Modern TATE will be interested in exhibiting the thousands of photos. She was a very comitted street photographer indeed. I liked the few that the slideshow showcases.

Thanks for sharing. I hope there'll be a reliable way of saving photos like yours and ours too,.....for so many years to come. I wonder if we should start printing on the side as we go along too, just in case, and preserve them where the colours and the print quality will not diminish in time and wear away....?



Yildiz

[bakubo]

On the contrary, I think digital will survive much more than film.
Why do you think so?

It depends on whether the photographer carefully and continually copies all files to new media as it becomes common and then after death someone continues to do it and after that person dies someone continues to do it and after that person dies someone continues to do it. In some families that may happen. But, for how many generations? Or, maybe you can buy a contract with some company and they guarantee that they will maintain all your files and make them available for eternity. Of course, if they don't during your lifetime then I suppose you can sue, but you won't get your files back. After you die you won't know whether you wasted your money (which would probably be considerable, eternity and all). I wonder how much it would cost for such a contract?

I guess I don't have any photos that it matters much if they disappear in the future, but for some people it might matter.

[bakubo]

In addition to all the work of scanning the negatives there is considerable work required to get really good prints. You don't just scan and print to get good results. To get the best you need to individually work on each photo (this is separate from cleaning up dust spots, scratches, results of imperfect developing, and imperfections in the emulsion). Of course, just a simple auto levels would often do pretty well, but probably not what one would want for a serious exhibition. Also, the person(s) doing this need not only Photoshop expertise, but also a good aesthetic sense.

[Dusty]

Henry, you just gave me the idea for the "next big internet thing". I'll have to register the domain, find a marketing plan and grab some storage servers. Then we can go ahead with and IPO and become millionaires! You're in this with me, aren't ya?

Dusty

[bakubo]

Henry, you just gave me the idea for the "next big internet thing". I'll have to register the domain, find a marketing plan and grab some storage servers. Then we can go ahead with and IPO and become millionaires! You're in this with me, aren't ya?

Yeah, I am in. Funny that you should mention this. The day LinkedIn went public a week or two ago I sent an email to an old buddy and told him we need to figure out what would be the next big internet wave and get to work on it. Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) is old hat now. What will be the Web 3.0? He and I talked about this several times when Web 1.0 was getting big in the late '90s but, obviously, we didn't figure it out then.

[DrScottNicol]

Henry, you just gave me the idea for the "next big internet thing". I'll have to register the domain, find a marketing plan and grab some storage servers. Then we can go ahead with and IPO and become millionaires! You're in this with me, aren't ya?

Yeah, I am in. Funny that you should mention this. The day LinkedIn went public a week or two ago I sent an email to an old buddy and told him we need to figure out what would be the next big internet wave and get to work on it. Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) is old hat now. What will be the Web 3.0? He and I talked about this several times when Web 1.0 was getting big in the late '90s but, obviously, we didn't figure it out then.

I believe these things go in cycles - so my prediction for Web 3.0 is...Antisocial networking! Tools, sites and services that allow you to Anonymise and remove personal details from sites like Facebook and Linked in, thus preventing corporate cyber stalking . Other tools and plugins will be generated that install themselves and automatically uninstall other plugins that install themselves and bots that will automatically search for web forums, register, log in, read the forums and automatically reply with pithy comments, accusations of trolling, point out grammatical errors or type random abuse, all without you even needing to load up your browser! Of course, other users bots will probably automatically respond and the internet will descend in a huge, perpetual flame war as each user's bot fights for bandwidth.... eventually, when the dust settles, this will herald Web 4.0 with the survivors using text heavy browsers and 56kbps modems on pay by the minute contracts.

In fact... for all you guys know, I've already written such a bot and its typing this very....- --bzztt-e--Xt- txttt...tttext.. text (queue twilight zone music)!

DrScottBot 3.0

[Birma]

Good one Scott . In fact I'm already too busy to keep up with all of these social network sites (except PCA of course!) so I'd love an app that just updated random stuff on my behalf. A sort of reverse RSS.

Back to the original topic. How many other 'Vivians' have there been where no one has found that box of negatives and they were just trashed and lost forever? Might there be modern day 'Vivians' out there right now? Would they store all of there digital images on a huge HDD at home that is just thrown away after they due, or would a modern day 'Vivian' post all of their images on Flickr and be discovered while still alive?

[DrScottNicol]

I'm guessing a modern 21st century Vivian with access to a digital camera would almost certainly be sharing those images digitally over the internet in some shape of form - by email if not a site like flickr - possible exceptions might be in regions with little / patchy internet access or ruled by regimes that would discourage her from sharing her images or restrictions on Internet access.