Essay On Photographer

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was born February 1, 1926 and was an American street photographer whose work was discovered and recognized after her death. During her lifetime, her photographs were unknown and unpublished. Vivian’s photographs were published on the internet in July 2008 but her photographs didn’t attract much attention. That was until October of 2009 when Maloof linked his blog to a selection of Maier’s photographs on a website Flickr, making Maier’s work go viral. Since then. Maier’s photographs kept gaining a lot of attention and have been exhibited around the world.

In this photograph, Vivian is seen capturing herself as well as others. She tends to do that with a lot of her photographs. Which could be called self portraits but she includes other elements in those photographs such as other people, mirrors, anything with a reflection so she can also capture herself in those photographs. What I find interesting about the photo is that since it looks like she’s taking a picture of herself, the other people in the photo don’t question if they’re being photographed or not. Vivian found a way to photograph others without having to directly point the camera at the them. She can photograph their reflection. What I relate to in this picture is that I also prefer to take pictures of myself through a mirror instead of having a camera directly pointed at me. I feel there’s attention on me which I like. I think that what the photographer is trying to show is that you can be as creative as you can with photography as long as you’re being true to you and your work. You can still connect this photo to all of Vivian’s other photographs. Not just because she’s shown in her own photo but because it’s still her style of photographs. It looks like the photo is going on and on because of the reflection reflecting on another mirror that was behind her. It looks endless. Sort of like a frame inside a frame. it repeats itself in a way without including Vivian since she’s blocking her reflection.