Remembering

Remembering

I received an email a few months ago sharing an amazing story about a street photographer named Vivian Maier. Vivian was born in 1926 and passed away in 2009. She wasn’t a Hollywood actress or a famous music icon but she comes with story. The reason I bring up her name is because a young man name John Maloof attended an estate auction in Chicago where he purchased a few of her belongings that he thought might benefit him on his task of writing a book about real estate. Upon reviewing his $400 purchase he found boxes full of over 100,000 film negatives. As he started to view them he learned that all of the negatives were taken by Vivian. John then began purchasing equipment costing thousands to scan the negatives. John then spent the next few months scanning negatives and meeting with those who knew Vivian. John learned Vivian was kind of a loner, she was a nanny for a few families on the north side of Chicago, she spoke with a French accent, she had strong opinions about movies and politics and she always had a camera around her neck. After some time John’s research was being noticed by local news stations as well as art appraisers. Up until this time Vivian’s work was not well known in the art world but thanks to John Vivian will never be forgotten.
Each of us take photos or are involved with photos almost on a daily basis. I don’t even think phones are made without cameras nowadays. We can take a photo in the car, elevator, mall, grocery store, even the park and the list goes on and on. Almost every day I get a text message from my wife sharing a photo of my little girl doing something funny or making a silly face or just a simple photo of her sleeping. My wife has captured hundreds of these random photos. From time to time she will go back and reminisce on the photos but for some reason she won’t delete them even though she never makes prints of them.
After pondering this subject for some time I have come to an understanding our culture is based around remembering. We love telling funny stories from the past. We love the idea of seeing the past and a photo is the closest we can get. We love using an amazing piece of technology to freeze time. Photos tell stories. Photos create memories. Photos allow us to show the world what we have become.  Photos teach us about Gods creations. Photos allow us to express our feelings in different ways. We love capturing photos!
I think it’s safe to say, there is a little Vivian Maier inside each of us. We each live simple lives but we love using photos as a way to remember.