On March 19, 2011, the Chicagoland and Northeastern Illinois Photo Meetup Group sponsored a meetup centered around the recently discovered street photography of Vivian Maier. I’m sure most who were in attendance would agree that the entire event was a huge success – not only did we learn something during Phase 1 and apply it in Phase 2, but we had fun doing it. Many of us burst out of our self-imposed limits and got some amazing street images. We did it driven by the encouragement of two of Chicago’s finest street photographers, Jason Martini and Brian Soko, of whom any group would be privileged to hear from on the subject. The give and take between them and the attendees was priceless, and there was no way I was going to interrupt that flow!
As such, almost two-thirds of what I was going to say was dropped, but what the heck? The actual result was so much better under the circumstances. People came to hear them, not me! And boy did we all benefit.
One of the things I noticed in the works of Vivian Maier I have seen is her varied use of subject matter and compositional elements in the photographs that have surfaced to the public to date. I highlighted some of those aspects of her photography here in “The Lost Episode”.
One thing to note about all this. Street photography is usually the capture of a fleeting moment, where the photographer has literally seconds to react. Even when you have time to line something up, the movement of the subject may not co-operate. The aspects that deal with composition may be difficult to master to a new street photographer, but over time these compositional elements become so instinctive, you won’t even realize you’re putting them into play until you see the result. Post-editing a little also helps.
Vivian used lines and patterns in various ways in her subjects. Here is a prime example of such use where the subjects are in harmony with the patterns. The lines in the building and sidewalk all converge to the center right of the frame, as do the line of women in the frame. This surely must have caught Vivian’s eye as she snapped this frame. The lines from the animate and inanimate object pleasingly directs the eye off to the right – harmony.
Lines/Patterns: Dissonance
Now here’s the use of the subject as it clashes with the geometry of the inanimate objects. Here she takes the flowing symmetry of angles and straight lines and disrupts it with the very non-geometric figure of a man standing right in the middle of it. Here the human element, as opposed to the image above, stands in dissonance to the other compositional elements in the frame, offering a sort of dynamic tension to the image.
Working
Always a great subject when looking for good street image is people at work. And I would say the more behind the scenes you can get without arrest, the better. People at work from the point of view of those working are always cool photographs. Even posed somehow, I think these work well. Examine how you can tell a story with images of people at work.
Public Transportation
This is a tricky place for shots in that you can’t shoot-n-move the way you can in the streets. In these locations I personally feel a little stealth is in order. This is where the Live View feature on my camera comes in very handy, because I can position the camera where it does not appear I’m lining up a shot. I’ve developed some good coping skills for bus and train shooting.
Street Scenes
From what I’ve seen of her work thus far, Vivian seemed to focus primarily on a single subject, or at most two or three, in her images. Here, however, she has a lot going on in the frame and to me, it works very well. In this image you really feel like a casual observer of a very fluid scene. Sometimes you can lose a viewer with too many subjects, but the subject here in my mind is the action itself, the perceived movement through the frame.
Human Interaction
Human interaction always seems to engage the viewer at some level. Two people looking at each other, talking to each other, holding hands – this to me always seems to suggest a story. Whether it’s holding hands as depicted in the image here or a cop busting a clearly belligerent woman in another one of Vivian’s images, these human interactions tend to pique our interests; we want to know what’s going on? We’re human, after all.
Moments
These types of human interaction images always seem to grab us on an emotional level. This is the good side of human interaction, a much different thing than the more visceral, confrontational types of human interaction. People tend to connect more with these “moment-type” images, more so than with the opposite end of the spectrum where we tend to distance ourselves as merely curious onlookers.
Sans Human
Can a street image be devoid of any human? I truly believe the answer to that is yes, but I do believe the hand of man must be evident. If not, in my mind, it’s a landscape. Another aspect of this is whether or not an image like this one is an architectural record rather that a street photo. Here’s my take on the difference. An architectural record would focus on the building, the building in context, or some architectural detail of the building. In the case of Vivian’s image to the left, it’s as if we just casually looked up, not taking in anything in particular – we just looked up. The true subject of the image seems to be the action of the viewer.
