Steve Schapiro, Then and Now: Rare Images from a Photography Legend

Steve Schapiro

left: Selma Marchers On the Road, 1965, right: Martin Luther King Jr., Selma March 1965

"Those who joined the Selma March could hold the flag high. It was a long symbolic walk and the possibility of violence was always there. Dr. King, the symbol of the non-violent revolution seemed to scour the crowds with a portent of what might follow."

Via Time LightBox
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
By Feifei Sun | @feifei_sun


Just the list of people Steve Schapiro has photographed during his career reads like a Who’s Who of the most influential politicians, celebrities and newsmakers in American history over the last five decades. But that Schapiro captured his subjects during their pivotal and seminal moments—Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign; Marlon Brando on the set of The Godfather; Andy Warhol and muse Edie Sedgwick in The Factory, among others—lends his photographs an added significance. They aren’t just remarkable portraits of remarkable people, but snapshots into our country’s historical and cultural milestones.

Schapiro’s output over his more than 50-year career has been prolific, and many people have probably seen one of his photographs whether they realize it or not. But his new book, Then and Now, gives readers a look at Schapiro’s lesser-known work; the majority of pictures has never been published. “There were so many pictures that I loved but didn’t fit with the format of my previous books, so this was a chance to bring forth that work,” he says. The book is comprised of single images shown over a spread, as well as spreads of disparate images that share a composition or theme—one such example has a portrait of Martin Scorcese holding a gun and grapes on the left page, and a portrat of Mia Farrow holding a baby on the right. “I wanted to make a book that was interesting on every page,” says Schapiro. “That evolved into the idea of working with double pages where one picture worked with another.”

Schapiro first took an interest to photography at 9 while at summer camp. He fell in love with “the magic of photography” in the dark room, where he became fascinated by how pictures came to life after being dipped in various formulas. But it wasn’t until he discovered Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, as a teenager, that his interest really took hold. He began trying to capture his own decisive moments on the streets of New York City, before going to study the formal aspects of photography under W. Eugene Smith.

In 1961, amid the height of the Civil Rights movement, Schapiro started working as a freelance photographer for publications such as LIFE, Rolling Stone, TIME and Newsweek. Over the next 10 years, which Schapiro calls “the golden age of photojournalism,” he would cover the decade’s most significant events, including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 march in Selma, and later, King’s abandoned motel room after this assassination, as well as the “Summer of Love” in Haight-Asbury and Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. “It was an incredible time to be a photojournalist because there was more of an emotional flow—an ability to do more emotional pictures that captured the spirit of a person,” says Schapiro of the period. “I was able to spend a lot of time with people—Bobby Kennedy went to South America for four weeks and I got to go with him. When I got really sick there, Ethel Kennedy brought me Bobby’s pajamas to wear. Bobby was someone who I became friends with, but everyone who worked with him loved him.”

Despite his success as a photographer, Schapiro maintains that he hasn’t taken his most important picture yet—and doesn’t have any idea what it might be. In the meantime, there’s one subject who continues to elude him: “President Barack Obama. I would love to photograph him.”

Slideshow here.

Exhibition of new and definitive collection of Mark Shaw’s photographs of The Kennedys

Jackie Kennedy at John. F. Kennedy's Senate desk, 1959

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce a major exhibition of photographs by Mark Shaw, concurrent with the publication of the new book "The Kennedys". The exhibition opens with a public reception on Friday, November 23, from 5 - 7 PM. The exhibition of vintage and contemporary editions will continue through January 27, 2013.

 Published by Reel Art Press, this stunning new publication is the definitive collection of Mark Shaw’s renowned photographs of the Kennedys. Most of the photographs featured in the book and exhibition have never been seen before. Shaw first photographed the Kennedys in 1959 for Life magazine. He subsequently developed a close friendship with the family that gave him extraordinary and informal access to their inner circle. During the following four years, Shaw captured them at their most relaxed: in Nantucket, Hyannis Port, Jacqueline's family home in Merrywood, Virginia and on The Amalfi Coast with the Agnellis. On the campaign trail in West Virginia, pre-White House at their first proper family home in Georgetown and at the star-studded inauguration gala. He became the Kennedys’ unofficial family photographer and his captivating shots capture some of their most intimate and candid moments. Among the most memorable photographs must be the image that was JFK's personal favorite; the photograph he told his family and friends he liked best. Perhaps somewhat poignantly, as the 50th anniversary of the assassination approaches, it is the image of Kennedy walking alone in the sand dunes at Hyannis Port which resonates, alongside a later iconic and moving image of the rider-less horse and the fallen leader’s reversed riding boots.

Mark Shaw lived from 1922-1969. As a photographer he is perhaps best known for his images of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, however he was also a leading fashion photographer, Mark Shaw worked for Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and a host of other fashion magazines. He started working for LIFE magazine in 1952 and in 16 years shot 27 covers and almost 100 stories. Throughout the 1950's and 1960s' Mark Shaw shot the European fashion collections for LIFE, and was one of the first photographers to shoot fashion on the runways and "backstage" at the couture shows. Decades after his death, Mark Shaw’s photographs continue to be published regularly in books and magazines.

Among the many notable people Mark Shaw photographed were Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Brigitte Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Melina Mercouri, Danny Kaye, Nico, Cary Grant, Pope Paul VI, Yves St. Laurent and Chanel.

 In his later years Mark Shaw also began filming commercials for television. He was the winner of many awards from the American TV commercial Festival for his work in commercials and from the Art Director's club for his earlier still work. Mark Shaw's Vanity Fair Lingerie and Chase Manhattan Bank's "Nest Egg" campaign are print advertising classics. Mark Shaw worked as a top print advertising photographer until his untimely death in 1969 at the age of 47. After his death, most of his work was hastily put into storage. All but a small number of photographs remained unseen for almost 30 years. In 1999, his only child, David Shaw, and David's wife, Juliet Cuming, moved the collection to Vermont, where they took on took on the job of creating the Mark Shaw Photographic Archive. In storage for almost 40 years, Mark Shaw's work is finally being unearthed, archived and made available for this exhibition.

 

Copies of the new book Mark Shaw: The Kennedys are available from the gallery  $75

Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than four decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in classic black & white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers. Monroe Gallery was the recipient of the 2010 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photojournalism.

Gallery hours are 10 to 6 Monday through Saturday, 11 to 5 Sunday. Admission is free. For further information, please call: 505.992.0800; or email.info@monroegallery.com

Stephen Wilkes' Sandy Photo Essay for TIME Magazine

Stephen Wilkes for TIME

Breezy Point, N.Y.: On the night Sandy made landfall, a fire swept through this community on the tip of the Rockaway Peninsula, consuming more than 100 homes.

Full slideshow here.
 

Flooded, Uprooted, Burned: The Tracks of Sandy on the ShoreVia Time LightBox


"After TIME commissioned me, along with four other photographers, to capture Hurricane Sandy using Instagram, I and many of my colleagues felt a deep personal need to go back and document the aftermath. I’ve covered disasters in other parts of our country, but this is my hometown, and Sandy was a storm of historical significance. I’ve often found that there is great power in telling difficult stories in a beautiful way. Interest in any given story wanes so quickly, yet it’s only through taking the time to go deeper that we get to a place of real understanding. I had to return to this story, and I wanted try to comprehend the scale of this storm. The only way for me to capture Sandy’s destructive fury was from above.
 
On the Sunday after Sandy made landfall, I decided to rent a helicopter and fly over some of the most devastated areas, including the New Jersey shore, Breezy Point and Far Rockaway. It was a beautiful day to fly, but unfortunately that beauty quickly eroded into shock as we began to get close to the coasts. It was everything I’d heard about, but it was difficult to believe what I was actually seeing. Once we got above the shoreline, I really started to understand the scale of the destruction. The expanse of land it ruined, the totality of the devastation — it was like a giant mallet had swung in circles around the area. It was mind numbing.

When I got home that night, the images still in my mind made it impossible to sleep. Through various points of this storm, it felt like we were all living through a science fiction movie. Seeing these devastated towns from above showed the cold reality of this storm’s severity.

From above, I realized how close particular neighborhoods were to bays or oceans. Sometimes, it was a matter of two blocks, and it’s a proximity not immediately apparent when you’re on the ground. In Breezy Point, for example, I knew that more than 80 homes had burned down in a fire, but nothing could have prepared me for what I actually saw. The blackened and charred blocks of homes viewed as a giant physical scar across the landscape. Seeing how much land was affected and yet how many homes were saved, made me think of the firefighters and how hard they must have worked just to contain this fire.

In flying over Staten Island, I was really struck by the marina, and how the boats were physically lifted from the pier and tossed together. It looked like a child’s game—huge, 40-ft. boats being thrown around like toys. We then flew over Oakwood, where I saw a house that had been lifted and dragged through a field of cattails; its path clearly visible days later, having left a trail of destruction through the cattails.

Sandy was a warning shot. I’ve had a unique view of what’s happened on a physical level. But the emotional toll has yet to be measured. It’s my hope that these images serve as a wakeup call — whether that call is about global warming, infrastructure, or just the recognition that the world is changing, it’s a reminder that we need to take special care of our fragile world." -- Stephen Wilkes

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Stephen Wilkes is a fine-art and commercial photographer based in New York. Wilkes was awarded the Photo District News Award of Excellence in 2011 and 2012.

Wilkes’ work will be part of a Sandy relief benefit auction hosted by 20×200 and TIME. Visit LightBox on Monday for more information.



Related: Stephen Wilkes Day To Night on CBS News Sunday Morning

“I’m tracking these journalist arrests because I’m concerned about the state of the First Amendment, and our willingness as a public and a democracy to defend it.”

Via freepress.net

Why I Won't Stop Tracking Journalist Arrests

Josh Stearns

November 14, 2012

One year ago today I published a blog post entitled “Why I'm Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests.” The next day, police raided New York City’s Zuccotti Park, where they arrested 12 journalists and blocked many others from documenting the raid.

Police had previously detained or arrested 13 journalists in the two months since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. By the end of 2011, that number grew to 60, and it now stands at roughly 100.

When I began tracking these arrests, it was an effort to bear witness, to make sure each of these stories was documented. But over the past year it has become much more than that. Through this work I have developed an incredible community of journalists, lawyers, press freedom advocates, organizers and a whole range of people who felt riled up and got involved. This network of friends and allies has been instrumental in tracking these arrests — sending tips, spreading the word, helping with research and supporting one another.

In working with people across the U.S. to chronicle journalist arrests, and in many cases advocate on behalf of journalists who’ve been detained, I’ve come to understand that expanding this community is critical to protecting the First Amendment. As journalism grows more networked and participatory, we need a system for supporting press freedom that builds on those same principles.

Traditionally, press freedom has been protected by institutions, like media companies, whose business interests depended on it. These companies had the legal resources and the clout to push back on First Amendment violations. But the arrests of the past year have illustrated the dwindling influence of these stakeholders and the need for new ways of defending press freedom.

With a few notable exceptions in New York and the Bay Area, commercial media didn’t weigh in on the journalist arrests. Those that did intervene tended to be newsrooms whose journalists were arrested or otherwise harassed. First Amendment groups, journalists’ professional organizations and local press associations have fought admirably, but they, like so many nonprofits, are stretched thin.
While some of the arrests I documented were relatively short detainments, other reporters were held for days and suffered rough treatment during and after their arrests. Some charges were dropped right away, but other journalists are just now being acquitted, almost a year after their arrests. A number of journalists are still waiting to hear the outcome of their cases while police drag out the process.
The arrests received some national attention, but most people are still unaware of how extensive the problem is and no one is tracking the impact of these year-long legal battles on the journalists themselves. In a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review last February, Carla Murphy (who herself had been arrested and is still facing charges) examined how arrests chill speech, especially for independent journalists.

While journalists rarely discuss this openly, many of these arrests were traumatic experiences, especially for those who were detained for extensive periods. Most of the research on post-traumatic stress disorder in journalists focuses on war correspondents, but I have heard from journalists arrested this past year who are struggling with similar symptoms. And I’ve talked with a number of journalists who approach their work very differently than they did before their arrests. These arrests are not just about our universal rights, but also about people’s individual lives.

A year ago I wrote “I’m tracking these journalist arrests because I’m concerned about the state of the First Amendment, and our willingness as a public and a democracy to defend it.” That worry continues today.

We need commercial media institutions to continue fighting to protect the First Amendment. We need strong nonprofit advocates to support citizen and independent journalists. We need journalists to stand up for each other on city streets and in the halls of power. But more than anything, we need to understand that we all have a stake in the First Amendment — and a role to play in defending it.
That’s why I’m going to continue tracking journalist arrests — to bear witness, to broaden the community of concern and to use the tools of media making to empower more people as advocates of our shared First Amendment rights.

Timeline: One Year in the Debate Over Press Freedom
Sept. 17, 2011: Occupy Wall Street begins in New York City

Sept. 24, 2011: John Farley of WNET/Thirteen is the first journalist arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street.

Oct. 1, 2011: The Occupy Wall Street movement crosses the Brooklyn Bridge, leading to mass arrests, including the arrests of three journalists.

Nov. 15–17, 2011: The New York Police Department raids Zuccotti Park right before the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Twelve journalists are arrested, with two more arrested on the actual anniversary two days later.

Nov. 18, 2011: The NYPD admits to arresting journalists with NYPD press credentials.

Nov. 21, 2011: New York media demand a meeting with NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne about abuses of press covering Occupy Wall Street.

Nov. 23, 2011: The NYPD issues a formal memo ordering officers to avoid “unreasonably interfer[ing]” with journalists. (Ten days later the NYPD arrest another journalist.)

Dec. 1, 2011: Forty-thousand people send letters and call their mayors, asking them to defend press freedom in their cities.

Dec. 8, 2011: The Committee to Protect Journalists releases its 2011 global census of journalist imprisonment, and finds that “the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide shot up more than 20 percent to its highest level since the mid-1990s.”

Dec. 9, 2011: Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York calls on the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD’s raid on Zuccotti Park and its treatment of protesters and journalists.

Dec. 12, 2011: The NYPD arrests nine independent journalists, livestreamers and photographers at the Winter Garden in New York City. Video also reveals officers blocking a New York Times photographer as he tries to cover the arrests.

Dec. 13, 2011: A series of “Who is a Journalist?” posts appear here, here and here.

Jan. 3, 2012: The NYPD raid the Brooklyn studio of Globalrevolution.tv, one of the central livestreaming groups covering Occupy Wall Street, and arrest six citizen journalists.

Jan. 18, 2012: The SOPA Internet Blackout spreads across the Web in protest of a piracy bill with broad First Amendment implications.

Jan. 25, 2012: Reporters Without Borders releases its yearly press freedom ranking. The U.S. plummets 27 spots to 47th in the world.

Jan. 28, 2012: Oakland police detain or arrest nine journalists when Occupy Oakland attempts to take over an empty building.

Feb. 2, 2012: Some cities respond to journalist arrests with apologies and police reprimands. Documentarian Josh Fox is arrested while trying to film a public hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Feb. 9, 2012: Sixteen-thousand people send letters of support to journalists who have been arrested.
March 3, 2012: Bay Area journalists and press organizations meet with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan about ongoing press suppression and arrests in the city.

April 30, 2012: A coalition of elected officials and members of the press file a civil rights lawsuit against the NPYD seeking redress for police misconduct during Occupy Wall Street protests. The National Press Photographers Association joins the lawsuit later in the year.

May 3, 2012: On World Press Freedom Day, a coalition of press freedom and digital rights groups send a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on the Justice Department to protect all people’s “right to record.”

May 14, 2012: The Justice Department releases a lengthy memo providing guidance to police departments and asserting that people’s right to record is protected under the First Amendment.
May 20, 2012: Four journalists are arrested while covering the NATO summit in Chicago. Other journalists and livestreamers complain about being targeted and harassed by police.

June 8, 2012: NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne tries to rewrite history and denies the NYPD arrested journalists the department had earlier admitted to arresting.

July 25, 2012: Researchers at NYU and Fordham law schools release an eight-month study which finds the NYPD “consistently violated basic rights” by using aggressive force and obstructing press freedom.

July 31, 2012: Twitter bans journalist Guy Adams for revealing an NBC executive’s work email address during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. (Adams was later reinstated.)

Aug. 27–Sept. 6, 2012: The Democratic and Republican conventions included a significant police and security detail, but there are relatively few incidents of press suppression.

Sept. 15–17, 2012: Eight journalist arrests occur on the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. This leads to another set of letters from the Society for Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association and 13 other media organizations.


Related: NYC Sued for Systematic Civil Rights Violations During Occupy Protests
     
             Here we go again: Occupy Wall Street Arrests Photographers

Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street
 

101 Images for Press Freedom

By Cristina Kladis • November 9, 2012


The fifth annual FotoWeek DC is upon us, and Reporters Without Borders is hosting one of its weightiest shows. “101 Images for Press Freedom” captures the history of photojournalism, beginning with the Spanish Civil War and culminating with the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Included in the exhibit are works by renowned photojournalists like Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as iconic images associated with major events, like the Tienanmen Square protests. The show’s goal is to remind viewers just how much photojournalists sacrifice on the job. In conjunction with the exhibit, tonight the Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts “Transforming Society Through Photos: The Role of Free and Independent Photojournalism,” a discussion with with Magnum Photo Agency photographers Larry Towell and Peter van Agtmael and Washington Post Director of Photography MaryAnne Golon about photojournalism’s role in society. Don’t go expecting too many Instagram shots.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts “Transforming Society Through Photos: The Role of Free and Independent Photojournalism." Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012.




The exhibition is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Nov. 10–Nov. 18 at the Warner Building, 1299 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. $5. fotoweekdc.org.

Tonight in NYC: "Eddie Adams: Saigon '68"

Via DocNYC
EDDIE ADAMS: SAIGON ’68

7:45 PM, Wed. Nov. 14, 2012 - IFC Center - Buy Tickets

Expected to Attend: Douglas Sloan, Morley Safer, Bob Schieffer, Hal Buell, Bill Eppridge, James S. Robbins

 

WORLD PREMIERE “Photographs do lie,” said Eddie Adams who took one of the Vietnam War’s most arresting photos of a point-blank execution. Filmmaker Douglas Sloan (Elliott Erwitt: I Bark at Dogs) investigates this famous image, revealing the complicated back-story of Adams and Nguyen Ngoc Loan, seen in the photo pulling the trigger. Sloan will screen his 15 min short featuring interviews with Peter Arnett, Bill Eppridge, Richard Pyle, Morley Safer and Bob Schieffer; followed by a live conversation about Adams’ legacy and the questions raised by the film.

Co-presented with the International Center of Photography.

Official Site: http://Saigon68.com

 

Director:Douglas Sloan

Producer: Tania Sethi

Cinematographer: Jack Donnelly

Editor: Charly Bender

Music: Hank Aberle

Running Time: 15 min

Related: Interview with  “Saigon ’68” Director Douglas Sloan

"It quickly became obvious that the story was not about the photograph but rather is the story of perception: of how a man takes a picture, the world responds, and that response leads him to a more nuanced, truthful understanding of the power of the media, the evils of war, and the complexities of human nature — Eddie Adams’ included."

 

Veteran's Day, 2012

Revealing Side Of Combat

There are sides of war we are not exposed to but a new photographic exhibit in River North is giving us a glimpse. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports: click for video

 

 

 

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Nina Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

 

 

 

Related: War/Photography

 

  How will you remember?

 

  A Day to honor American veterans of all wars

 

  Veteran's Day, 2009 

 

 

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY Opens Veterans Day, Sunday, November 11, in Houston

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston  

Admission on opening day is free to all visitors, in recognition of Veterans Day; admission remains free to active-duty military and veterans through the run of the exhibition

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY travels nationally to Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Brooklyn Museum through February 2014

Houston—September 2012—On November 11, 2012, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, debuts an unprecedented exhibition exploring the experience of war through the eyes of photographers. WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath features nearly 500 objects, including photographs, books, magazines, albums and photographic equipment. The photographs were made by more than 280 photographers, from 28 nations, who have covered conflict on six continents over 165 years, from the Mexican-American War of 1846 through present-day conflicts.

Read more here.



Related:

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Nina Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

CNN: Classic andHistoric Portraits of War


Financial Times: War and Peace (with slide show)


NY Daily News: War photography exhibit debuts in Houston museum


 KPRC TV Houston  Exhibition showcases war photos (with video)


Houston Chronicle: "It's a subject that has deep impact, and because most of us don't experience war first-hand, photographs are our collective memory of it"
 

The New York Times: "Battlefield Images, Taking No Prisoners"


Photo District News: War Correspondence


Modern Art Notes Podcast features the new Museum of Fine Arts Houston exhibition “War Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath.


MFAH debuts unprecedented exhibit of war photography

Time LightBox: "War/Photography, on view from Nov. 11 to Feb. 3, is a magnificent, wide-ranging exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston"

"Vivian Maier’s story had come to an end. To the world, it was only just beginning."

Via New York Times Lens

The still unfolding legend of Vivian Maier has been one of photographic genius discovered only after a lifetime of shooting. Now hailed as a master of street photography, she spent most of her working life in obscurity as a nanny in New York, where she was born, and Chicago, where she died in 2009 at age 83.

In her later years, her oeuvre – more than 100,000 images – sat unseen in storage, along with much of her earthly possessions. When she was unable to keep up with the storage fees, they were auctioned off in 2007. After her death two years later, a collector who had bought one of the lots began to put her images online. Within weeks, she had a global following.

The latest chapter in this endlessly fascinating tale is the publication this year of “Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows,” by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams (CityFiles Press). The following essay is excerpted from that book.

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Slideshow here

It’s the end of the day. The TV has been flipped on. A small fire is tended in the backyard. The marquee of the Wilmette Theater is being changed over. Parents’ night at the local school is wrapping up. The children are asleep as Vivian Maier heads home with her camera by the glow of the streetlights.

Maier continued to document her life throughout the 1980s and 1990s. She shot Ektachrome, packing tens of thousands of the color transparencies into sleek yellow Kodak slide boxes. But her days with the Rolleiflex, with which she had taken her most personal and important photographs, were mostly over by the 1970s.

Vivian Maier On the beach at Coney Island during the early 1950s.

Vivian Maier learned to photograph using a box camera, which lends an impressionistic look to her early work.

 

Work as a nanny continued. When Zalman and Karen Usiskin interviewed her to be their housekeeper and baby sitter in the 1980s, she announced: “I come with my life, and my life is in boxes.” Zalman told her that would not be a problem since they had extra room in the garage. “We had no idea how many boxes,” he later said.

Around 1990, Maier took a job caring for Chiara Baylaender, a teenage girl with severe developmental disabilities. Maier was good company for her: they played kick the can and amused themselves with pop beads. Maier dressed Chiara in mismatched clothes from the Salvation Army. “But it’s Pendleton,” Vivian told the girl’s sister when she protested. It didn’t matter. “My sister looked like a junior Vivian,” she recalled.

 

New, Old Photos

 

Ever since her street photography was “discovered” in 2009, Vivian Maier has received increasing attention and accolades. Lens has posted on Ms. Maier before:

• New Street Photos »

• Better and Better »

• Touring the Past »

 

And Maier proved an uninterested housekeeper, too. “It’s just going to get dusty again,” she would say. Having filled the Baylaenders’ storage room, she piled her bedroom five feet deep with books, leaving only a narrow path to her bed. Then she covered that — and slept on the floor.

In the mid-1990s, Maier went to work as a caretaker for an older woman. After the woman moved to a nursing home in 1996, Maier stayed on in her Oak Park house for a couple of months to get it ready to sell. Maier made overtures about working for the family of the woman’s daughter, but she was not needed.

Over the years, leaving was never easy. Despite being close to these families, Maier was an outsider. During the late 1960s, she photographed the light coming from the homes she passed. Always looking in. At seventy, she was looking for work in North Chicago or Waukegan, almost an hour north of Chicago. With little saved and no family of her own, she was determined to keep living independently.

Acquaintances recall Maier as an imposing, confident, stolid woman in her later years. Jim Dempsey, who worked the box office at the Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, saw her most every week for over a decade. She would dig through her purse looking for money, sighing until Dempsey let her in. She often stopped to talk — about movies, life, anything but herself — although he never got her name.

Bindy Bitterman, who ran the antiques store Eureka in Evanston, knew Maier only as Miss V. Smith, the name she gave to hold an item. She was the only customer who ever bought Ken, a long-forgotten liberal magazine from the 1930s. Roger Carlson, who ran Bookman’s Alley nearby, knew her full name but was scolded when he introduced her to another customer by it. She visited his shop as late as 2005 and bought Life magazines, talked politics (“Her judgment was pretty harsh on everyone”), and agonized about how difficult it was to find work.


She was a fighter to the end, Carlson said.

The boys who had thought of Vivian Maier as a second mother tried to keep track of her for years. They made overtures to help, but she resisted. She loved the Gensburgs and kept up with the family — going to weddings, graduations, baby showers — but it was hard for her to ask for help.

Vivian Maier Self-portrait, Los Angeles. 1955.

Because of her pride and her need for privacy, Maier remained elusive for years. When the Gensburgs found her, she was on the verge of being put out of a cheap apartment in the western suburb of Cicero. The brothers offered to rent a better apartment for her on Sheridan Road at the northern tip of Chicago, but they told her she needed to clean up her Cicero place before she left. She agreed, showed them the Clorox and rags, pulled up a chair, sat back with The New York Times, and told Lane to start with the walls and bathroom.

Even in her new apartment, Maier made it difficult for the family to keep track of her. The Gensburgs bought her a cellphone, but she refused to use it. So they just dropped by when they wanted to see her.

In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice on Howard Street not far from her home and hit her head. She was taken, unconscious, by paramedics to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. When she came to, she refused to tell the emergency room staff what had happened and demanded to leave. Lane Gensburg was called. Doctors assured the family that she would recover, but she never did. For the next several months, she resisted eating and was barely responsive. Too weak to return to her apartment, Maier was transported in late January 2009 to a nursing home in Highland Park, where her health continued to decline. She died there on April 21, 2009.

The Gensburgs had Vivian Maier cremated and scattered her ashes in a forest where she’d taken the boys fifty years earlier. They considered having a funeral but knew she would have abhorred such an observance. So they paid for a death notice in the Chicago Tribune: “Vivian Maier, proud native of France and Chicago resident for the last 50 years died peacefully on Monday. . . . A free and kindred spirit who magically touched the lives of all who knew her.”

To the faithful Gensburgs, Vivian’s story had come to an end. To the world, it was only just beginning.

Vivian Maier Vivian Maier, Highland Park, Ill. 1965.

"Every photograph is a product of the photographer’s experiences in their entire life"

In case you missed this important interview with photojournalist Ben Lowy by Jonathan Blaustein on A Photo Editor, we have posted the links below. A must read.


I caught up with Ben Lowy in August. He’s a busy man, juggling family and personal projects with a super-charged career. In the last year alone, he was in Libya, on Jon Stewart, won the photojournalist of the year award from the ICP, and had his book, “Iraq Perspectives” published by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke.



Ben Lowy Interview – Part 1

"I’m an open book. I’ve got nothing to hide. I was pretty fucked up by things that happened in 2007. And I felt really guilty about surviving."

Ben Lowy Interview – Part 2


"Photography, regardless if it’s photojournalism, or some sort of esoteric contemporary art, you’re putting a bit of your soul in it. That soul is what makes you take a picture at that instant. It’s what makes you compose, to wait for things to happen. For serendipity.

Every photograph is a product of the photographer’s experiences in their entire life. It’s everything that comes together that makes them want to take that picture at that instant. Otherwise, we would all be robots."


Via APhotoEditor