The Finnish Museum of Photography just opened Vivian Maier exhibition last week. I visited the exhibition yesterday. The exhibition concentrated on Vivian Maiers selfies. The name of the exhibition was The Self-Portrait and its double.
The exhibition consisted of 83 photographs and cine films from the period 1953 to 1986.
The whole collection of 120.000 negatives were found from a storage house in 2007. Maier herself lived in total privacy. She was a nanny and photography was her hobby. It was a sensation when the negatives were found. Her story can be read from the website that was made to honor her work. It is a fascinating story and worth reading.
When Vivian Maier was photographing selfies it was not a big thing like it is now. Most of the photos exhibited were reflections from mirrors and other reflective objects. One of my favorite images was the reflection from a wheel capsule of a Beetle.
A collection of her self-portraits can be seen on the already mentioned website.
Taking selfies is an interesting genre of photography. It has a long also in painting. The first known selfie was taken by Robert Cornelius in 1829. It was a daguerrotype. Another early selfie was by Hippolyte Bayard. The photograph is known as Self Portrait as a Drowned Man.
It was a reaction to the injustice he felt. Hippolyte Bayard had a photo exhibition 24th of June 1839. It was the worlds first photo exhibition. Bayard also claimed that he had invented photography before Lois Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot. The invention was credited to the two and Hippolyte Bayard was totally ignored at the time. Very understandable that he felt miss treated.
It would interesting to hear what Vivian Maier would say if she knew how famous her photographs are? As the story of her life says she was very private. Maybe she would not have liked the fame?
Most likely she enjoyed the process of making photographs more than showing them to others. Was she just too modest and did not realise how gifted she was as a photographer. Was she a victim of her time when women did not had nearly as good opportunities that they have today at least in the western world? We will never know.
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