365: Red; February 13, Found; Vivian Maier

From the plus-15 spanning 1st St SW, looking south. YYC

Went to an extraordinary film tonight.

In 2007, John Maloof, a realtor and garage sale/auction aficionado, bid on a large box of negatives. He was looking for historical photographs to illustrate a project. He bought the lot for some $350.

He didn't find what he was looking for in those negatives. What he did discover was the work of north America's most significant street photographer. Ever. Except this photographer, Vivian Maier, was utterly undiscovered.

Maloof went looking for anything else he could lay hands on and found many, many boxes of negatives. And then he found many boxes of undeveloped colour film and then boxes of undeveloped black and white film. The sum of it all is the greatest archive of American photographic history that exists.

He also found the dark side of this woman in the boxes and boxes of newspaper articles she kept.

At present, Maloof has a lab in New York City scanning the negatives, eight hours a day, five days a week, and this has been going on for more than two years. Maloof is developing some of the film himself and having much of it done, also full-time, at another NYC lab. The estimates are in the area of 72,000 photographs, not including 8mm films, recordings, cassettes....

Maier's work spans more than four decades, and more than 10 countries. Maier died only weeks prior to Maloof stumbling on her work.

I don't remember exactly when I came upon Vivian Maier, but that meeting was significant. Her style is so compelling and perfect. There are wonderful street photographers in the world, whose works I love, but Maier ...

John Maloof's film, Finding Vivian Maier, was screened tonight as part of the Exposure Festival. It is surprising, compelling, disturbing, brilliant and sad. It is a must-see.