Vivian Maier and the Human Condition as Reflected in Found Photographs

Collecting estranged photos of someone's grandparents or kids who are all grown up now and cleaning out their own attics and garages of photos of childhood blue heelers and work Christmas parties or someone standing next to their high school graduation car or post-college apartment out of the back rooms of consignment stores is a kind of niche and very modern hobby. Appreciating the snapshot as an object or more specifically, in the case of many found photos, as an heirloom or trophy is increasingly uncommon. What are you going to do with it? It'll just take up space and collect dust. The snapshot carries a strained relationship with fine art if and when it exceeds its original purpose. It's largely unremarkable, although it has so much potential in understanding how collecting, curating, and creating photographs can be acts of love, and whether or not that love held up as you aged matters little, as what's preserved on the print becomes the only truth to a stranger who may happen to stumble upon it. I'll never understand when I find someone's old wedding photos why anyone would ever give this away. I like to believe in fate, and in creating a photograph or any kind of art, I suppose you're pledging yourself to a kind of blind faith that in leaving something behind, you'll inevitably discover something that you didn't have a name for. A tradition that you weren't aware you were a part of.

This isn't to say that everything misplaced or forgotten deserves to be found. An argument on what history and its figures are deserving to be remembered is a whole other discussion entirely, and we don't have to remember everything; it's an unhealthy and unwarranted burden to attempt to do so. Sometimes things are intentionally lost, and you should learn to respect that. However, the beauty of the found photograph is that everyone's equal. I don't know how awful or wonderful the people in the photo are, and that's kind of the point—that meaning doesn't matter anymore. We're all entitled to a second chance in this way, whether we're deserving of it or not. Does Vivian Maier deserve to be remembered? Now recognized as a pioneer of street photography, John Maloof, the collector who's credited with publishing much of Maier's work, had to deal with the ethics of whether it was his right to act upon his findings and curate work that Maier largely intended to remain hidden from public view. Where does the transitionary line lie where life is maintained or betrayed, unwillingly becoming an aspect of public history? Maier took over 100,000 photographs over the course of her life, not even bothering to develop the negatives half the time. This is representative of someone with an intense appreciation for documenting her surroundings simply for the sake of it. You could argue she was afraid of seeing the final prints, or maybe she knew that something undone would have to be left behind. When not photographing the mundane street scenes of New York and Chicago, she was creating self-portraits that at times feel uneasy or confrontational, not always looking directly at her reflection and hardly ever smiling. We can think of the selfie, especially in contemporary terms, as a form of self-love, although I don't think that's what's going on for Maier. It feels like she's confronting the "audience," with a proof of existence as to say "I have inhabited space, please don't forget me" if only she knew. As Maloof further publicized Maier's work, interest continued to grow in understanding who this woman was. What was her life story? What were her motivations? In a way, these questions feel predatory; maybe I don't want to indulge her life, in respecting her wishes to remain an anonymous figure. Does her due diligence in hiding herself even matter anymore? As I grow my own collection of images, I do wonder what I might be unknowingly emboldening through preserving and presenting strangers' lives through snapshots. Is it dishonest to appreciate the aesthetic purity of a photo as separated from narrative? The digital age in a way has both reinforced and sought to dismantle the beauty of the snapshot in that there is no room for mistakes in circulating images through social media. You're encouraged to curate life through photographs instead of documenting, which is only natural, yet I seek out the imperfections of the snapshot because there is a kind of universal truth in what people intentionally or unintentionally throw away.

If you're interested in found photography as a medium, Other People's Pictures is an obscure little documentary directed by Cabot Philbrick and Lorca Shepperd which details the lives of nine found photography enthusiasts in their search for the perfect photo to complete their collections.