Vivian Maier - the discovery of a wonderful street photographer

I just came across the amazing story of Vivian Maier - nanny and extraordinary amateur street photographer.
In 2007 a Chicago estate agent, John Maloof, went to a furniture and antiques  auction and bought some boxes full of old photos, negatives and rolls of film. This sparked in him an interest in photography and the more he studied it the more he realised how good these photos were. He  managed to buy the rest of the boxes that were at the auction and now has over 100,000 images.
He did some research to find out who the mystery photographer was and found it was a French nanny who lived in Chicago and New York in the fifties and sixties.
Her photos are great. You can see some and read her story on the blog/website at
vivianmaier.com . Watch the Chicago Tonight video you will find there
Other interesting sites/articles:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/little-miss-big-shot-fifties-america-exposed-ndash-by-a-french-nanny-1811040.html (click on the 'more photos' link under the photo for a slideshow)

http://www.kitchensisters.org/girlstories/the-lost-found-photographs-of-vivian-maier/

A feature length documentary 'Finding Vivian Maier' is planned for 2012 more info at Kickstarter

Photographer of the Year

Yesterday we popped into the National Theatre on the South Bank to see the annual jewellery exhibition Dazzle.
Some excellent work on show and for sale.
While there I noticed there was the exhibition of entries for the 4th Landscape Photographer of the Year competition. Very impressive, some wonderful photos.
 You can see the winners here:
Photographer of the Year

There is a well produced book of all the photos for £25 (£5 discount in the National Theatre shop but even better only £12.15 at Amazon UK)
Landscape Photographer of the Year: Collection 4 (Photography)

Photographers protest in Tafalgar Square

Today professional and amateur photographers protested in London's Trafalgar Square about the increasing phenomenon of police 'stopping and searching' anyone (including tourists) photographing certain public buildings or police officers.
Last week the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this indiscriminate practice is illegal, so the government has appealed.
Meanwhile - be warned!!

Read the story here

Jacques Henri LARTIGUE

On Thursday night BBC4 transmitted a documentary by Nick Danziger called "The Boy Who Never Grew Up". It was about Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894 - 1986) one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. While I was already familiar with many of his photographs, I was completely unaware that many of his best known ones were taken at the age 10 or 12 years old. He started at the age of 6 with his father's camera.

He was not really known until 1963, at the age of 69, when the Museum of Modern Art put on a retrospective exhibition of his work
In 1979 he donated his meticulously archived collection of his life's photographic work to the French State. It is called the Donation Jacques Henri Lartigue
A fascinating life, I must read his biography.

Kids with Cameras

This morning on BBC Radio 4's 'Midweek' programme there was an interesting feature about the educational benefits of photography to deprived children.

"Sue Carpenter is a journalist and photographer. She recently led a photographic project in Nepal for the charity Asha-Nepal, in which girls from desperately poor backgrounds were taught to use a camera to remarkable effect. The photographs can be seen in My World, My View available from Asha-Nepal. You can also view them on the BBC News website. "
You can 'Listen again' to the interview on the BBC website for the next 6 days at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/midweek.shtml

This is very similar to the project in Calcutta: subject of the 2005 Oscar winning documentary "Born into Brothels" by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski.
a moving and inspiring film which I highly recommend if you are interested in children and in photography.
Following the success of the Calcutta experiment Zana set up 'Kids with Cameras' which runs workshops in Haiti, Cairo and Jerusalem and the original Calcutta workshop.

Having first seen 'Born into Brothels' on BBC TV I tried to get the DVD but it was only published in a Region 1 format not compatible for UK/Europe. Now I am happy to say that since August it is also available in Region 2 format so I have it at last.