Her shadow and a twin-lens camera: Her own shadow and reflection recur in her self-portraits, and she usually photographed with a Rolleiflex twin-lens camera.
The icon is an original FilmAnalysis drawing of an ordinary object, not a copy of any photograph. It is a way into the photographer’s work; the explanation follows the sources below.
Edited by John Maloof and published by powerHouse Books in 2011, this volume presents 100 duotone photographs of street life by Vivian Maier. Her negatives surfaced at a Chicago auction in 2007, two years before her death in 2009, and were subsequently brought to a wider audience.
First-edition dates only; reprints, translations and revised editions are on each book's page. What autobiographies and interviews say is the photographer's own account, not independently verified fact.
Life and books in timeVerified record Dots are verified years: birth and death, first editions, awards. Positions are whole years; reprints and translations are not drawn. A dot opens the book or the award.The same as a table
An editorial summary of the body of work by FilmAnalysis: interpretation, not historical record.
A nanny who photographed Chicago and New York for forty years with a Rolleiflex at waist level and showed almost no one. Square frames, direct encounters with strangers, and self-portraits in shop windows.
In her street pictures foreground, middle and background all work at once: a passer-by's back in front, the main figure in the middle, the city behind. The setting is part of the story.
In the self-portraits she seldom shows herself directly. She appears in a mirror, in shop-window glass or as a shadow, sometimes at the edge of the frame.
Colour
Black and white on the Rolleiflex; Ektachrome colour later.
Composition
Square, waist-level, subject centred and close.
Light
Street daylight, often slightly from above.
Tone
Medium contrast, full grey scale.
Texture
Medium-format smoothness with modest grain.
Mood
Curious, direct, humane.
Recurring motifs
A stranger looking straight into a waist-level lens
