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Michael Williams

Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows Hardcover – October 16, 2012

by Richard Cahan (Author), Michael Williams (Author)

128 ratings

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Presenting her breathtaking photographs alongside revealing interviews with those who knew her best, this volume is the first attempt to put Vivian Maier's work in context and create a moving portrait of her as an artist. Though she created more than 120,000 negatives during her lifetime, only a few were ever seen by others. Shortly after her death in 2009, the first group of her unseen photographs--gritty with humanity and filled with empathy and beauty--were shown online. What followed was a firestorm of attention, catapulting Maier from previous obscurity to being labeled as one of the masters of street photography. Her work has appeared in numerous museum exhibits and a feature-length documentary on her life and art has already been planned. Features more than 300 duotone photos printed on 105# paper with flood varnish.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

CityFiles Press
Publication date

October 16, 2012
Dimensions

9 x 1.3 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0978545095
ISBN-13

978-0978545093
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John Maloof
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Ann Marks
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Vivian Maier
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Pamela Bannos
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Colin Westerbeck
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Vivian Maier
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John Maloof
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Fred Herzog
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Ann Marks
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Excitement over the mysterious “nanny photographer” went viral after a selection of Maier’s commanding black-and-white photographs were displayed online shortly after her death in 2009. Her never-before-seen work was discovered after the contents of her storage lockers were auctioned off because she couldn’t pay the bills. Now the brilliant and intrepid photo reclamation and writing team of Cahan and Williams (The Lost Panoramas, 2011) tell Maier’s deeply moving story. They conferred with everyone they could find who knew Maier and chose 300 galvanizing photographs—most unprinted, many undeveloped—from the tens of thousands she shot. We learn that Maier, of French and Austrian descent, was born in New York City in 1926, raised in the French Alps, traveled the world with her camera, and settled in a Chicago suburb in 1956. She lived frugally while working as a nanny and caregiver, continually taking pictures of her young charges and their world and of Chicago’s see-it-all streets, composing urban tableaus of penetrating wit and empathy. Maier was “painfully private,” outspoken, unconventional, gutsy, and compassionate, and her long-secret photographs evince a profound clarity of vision and intent. Cahan and Williams compare Maier to Emily Dickinson, and her life and work do speak to our most cherished sense of what art is and why it matters. --Donna Seaman

Review

"Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, in my opinion, presents her work in exactly the correct manner" --Kenneth Tanaka, The Online Photographer

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ CityFiles Press; 1st edition (October 16, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0978545095
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0978545093
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.48 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9 x 1.3 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,340,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #851 in Individual Photographer Monographs

Customer Reviews:
128 ratings

About the author

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Michael Williams

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Michael Williams is a writer, designer, and publisher who has produced more than a dozen books. He is the coauthor of eight books, including Richard Nickel's Chicago, Vivian Maier, and Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Customer reviews

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Top reviews from the United States

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Vivian Maier Redux

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

This second book of the late Vivian Maier's almost lost work is even stronger overall than "Street Photographer." That book is a strong, vivid, impressive, lovely book. The images are those things, and the book is well made and printed, with quite useful text commentary (not always the case in photobooks). "Out of the Shadows" is all that and more. This book shows both a wider range of Maier's interests and concerns, and a greater quantity of them, and the book itself is of outstanding production quality in every particular, most especially the plates themselves, which have just gorgeous tonality and frequently a sense of depth quite apart from ordinary depth of field, almost like daguerrotype.

It is a lot of fun to see a photographer's career laid out retrospectively all at once, as we have had the privilege with Maier, and shall continue to, as other arrangements of her large and increasingly wide-ranging legacy are published (and at some point, a major public exhibition). All the echoes of Helen Levitt, Garry Winogrand, Arthur Tress, Lisette Model, Walker Evans, even Diane Arbus tease and insist on the questions of how much of these or other photographers' work she knew, how well, and what she thought of it. I'll leave to others the hyperbole and over-excitement that often has surrounded Maier in the three years since the work went public, except to say that it is easy to go there. Vivian Maier (oh, here I go now) is in some real respect a photographic Emily Dickinson (and as tough-minded and funny at points as Dickinson, as well as reclusive and lacking self-confidence). This is a photobook I know I will come to regard ever more highly, among the nearly 150 already in my library, and Maier's 'career' isn't yet over, not for us who have had the almost dumb luck to find her just in time.*

*just in time for us, regrettably not in time for Maier herself. . .

5 people found this helpful

Brian C. Miller

Peering into the past, by someone who loved to photograph

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 5, 2012

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I had heard about Ms. Maier before any books had been published, and I was quite interested by the few pictures I had seen. She has a personal story that resonates with me: she simply went out and photographed for the sake of photographing. And that's just a wonderful thing.

While the book's printing isn't as good as "Ansel Adams at 100," it is very good. The layout of the book, in a square to match the 6x6 negative, and its photographs, provide an immersing experience. Ms. Maier photographed whatever it occurred to her to photograph, from a the ankles of a man showing threadbare socks with holes, to children in the park, to a lady walking down the streen wearing fur and pearls.

The book is just full of moments of life as people lived it, going about their lives. If anything inspires you to take a camera with you on a walk or a bike ride, let it be this humble book.

2 people found this helpful

Superb Photographs

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 29, 2013

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This book in-person is so beautiful & fine, it's really difficult to do it justice. Each of Vivian Maier's black & white photographs of New York in the 1950's is a stand alone piece of art. Her composition and intimacy with the people and places she encountered shows an innate sensitivity.. in this secret indulgence of hers. The size of the book is larger than I thought it would be; it's thick and heavy. This design, of course, lends to an experience of really being able to sit with the photographs, which are splendidly reproduced. They're large and glossy. I gave the book as a gift to a friend who lives in New York and has a cursory interest in photography (to inspire her). She was blown away with this present!

4 people found this helpful

Vivien is a great street photographer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 6, 2018

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Vivian was a great street photographer and she used a medium format camera with a waist level finder to shoot. I don't know if people realize how difficult it was to get a good shot quickly with a camera like the Rollicord or Rolleiflex TLR cameras. The subject looks upside down and flipped opposite in the viewfinders. She did such a wonderful job and her work is immense. It's a treasure trove of work.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 12, 2020

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Libraries seem to get the best quality books of photos, then sell them. I was elated to find this one in great condition.

A Girl and Her Camera

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 29, 2012

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It was simply Ms. Maier's passion for photography that created this wonderful book (Out of the Shadows) for all of us to enjoy. She captured life on the streets.
She was simply there....waiting for the moment.....
The sad thing about her story is that it took her death to bring her talents to the forefront. And just maybe I never would have appreciated her work as I do if she had lived. She would just have been another photographer.

All of her work being left in a storage area and then sold for auction when she never picked them up. A treasure just waiting to be found. And now a treasure to be enjoyed my many - again and again and again.

She had an absolutely incredible eye!

One person found this helpful

Stunning quality printing and images

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 27, 2012

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This is the 2nd book of Vivain's work and in my opinion the better of the two books, in terms of print quality. Images in both books are excellent examples of Vivian's keen eye for capturing the variety of characters and styles of the decades she photographed. To me this is the spirit of "street photography" - a recording of the environment, style, cultural trends and scope of humankind, predominantly from the view of western society, but with a bit of more worldly views mixed in from her travels abroad.
Any fan of this style of photography will find something to appreciate in her work. This one should be in your collection.

2 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Poignant and a little melancholy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 29, 2013

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In contrast to Maloof's book, this volumn brings a bit of sadness with it. The photographs are impressive and well reproduced but the narrative of Ms. Maier's life can't help but make one wistful about what quirks of personality and experience caused her to live the way she did, inside herself, hiding her life and photographs away from the world. With complementary material and focus, I view this book as an excellent companion and in some ways counterpoint to the book by Maloof, which I also have. Maloof's does definitely give a more cheerful aftertaste, though.

One person found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Still remembers Elite

A more personal side to her work, than 'Street Photographer'.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 27, 2013

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This book had a profound emotional impact on me. And as a photographer who takes +10000 pictures a year for myself, for indulging in my own interest in photographic images, it has also moved and evolved my views on photography.
One thing that soon stands out very clearly, is that this book is much different from 'Vivian Maier, Street Photographer'. For this reason, anyone interested in Vivian Maier should acquire both. However, I doubt very much these both books gives us any complete or definitive view of Vivian Maier. There is more, must be more, to be revealed.
Another thing that strikes you (with this book), is that Vivian Maier wasn't exactly a "Street Photographer". That's just a label they have applied to her, to position her, in the contemporary establishment of perceptions of photography. Of course many of Maier's images falls into the cathegory of 'Street Photography'. But that's by convenience or accident. Vivian Maier was a photographer. Period. She nurtured an obsessive love for the photographic image and for making them. And she seems to have made an awful lot of them that are truly excellent.
A third thing that strikes you is that she went her own way. All the way. She didn't listen to anybody. She didn't seek any judgement or accolades. She didn't watch or communicate with other photographers. Everything is 100% Vivian Maier, totally 24 carat genuine. She doesn't care if anyone else finds worth in her images. They had immense worth for her. That's all that mattered.
These things are parts of the portrait that this book presents. It's much more personal than 'Street Photographer'. There are a lot of images, and the printing is very good, as it should be.
I've seen some murmurs from others about that the images in this book are not as striking as those in the 'Vivian Maier, Street Photographer' book. Depending upon what you mean by 'striking' or 'strong' that could have some truth in it. However, in my opinion, the images in this book are of the same quality and possibly more interest. They present a more intimate, personal outlook on the world. Many may lack the twist or "moment" of 'street photography', but instead they have a strong sense of the preciousness of time. She captures a sliver of time, for other, more personal and heartfelt reasons, than in the traditional image of life in the public room of street photographers. And it's very easy to read in more value in that. I do it so easy.
Whether the value is there or not, will be up to a lengthy semantic process between gallery owners, critics and art professors (it really is, that's how art works).
In the end it doesn't matter. Vivian Maier's images are still there, whether they are representations of her artistic vision or somebody's selection process. It's enough for me. And it seems to be enough for the big audience as well. I certainly hope interest will be enough to make photography books of her work keep coming out.
I would guard my tounge very carefully, if I were anyone of Vivian Maier's critics. Remember that Van Gogh eventually buried his, in a landslide of ridicule.

9 people found this helpful

"noddlewrap"

Good sample for aspiring photographers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

I love this book, despite it's faults. Some of the images need some minor tweaks, like the brightness adjusted so you can see them properly in print and it could clearly benefit from a better edit, which is why I like it. You often don't get to see a cross section of work like this from a photographer, it's nice to see the progress and the hits and misses next to each other; it's a clear demonstration that nobody is instantly a great photographer and it takes time to grow and get better. It's good fodder to inspire confidence in your own body of photography work.

I'd recommend this book to those photographers learning the art, you get to see it all because of how the book was edited and how the photos were discovered. Rarely do you get to glimpse at an artists "orgy of evidence" like this.

J. Cheng

It has a good selection of photos spanning her life journey

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 26, 2013

Verified Purchase

Another Vivan Maier book and more photos please. If you are a Vivan Maier fan, then you should buy this one. It has a good selection of photos spanning her life journey. If you want more, then check out two other books, the self portrait is a great buy too!

One person found this helpful

m j walton

great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

brought as a present or my son. it was a randome choice as he has numerous photography books but hel loves it

One person found this helpful

Smirky

but hate the way Vivian Maier never knew her work was ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 3, 2016

Verified Purchase

lovely book, but hate the way Vivian Maier never knew her work was respected & she died in poverty

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