The New Years' Resolution that I made for myself this year is to read 60 books. I'm trying to tell myself to break the habit of buying a book every time I enter a bookstore. That bad habit has led to owning 30+ unread books on my shelves.

Every time that I go into D.C. I'll visit the bookstore for 1. to see if there are any interesting books to add to my to-read list and 2. bookstores and people reading books make good scenes for a photograph.

I was browsing through their photography section and found Vivian Maier's photobook of her color photographs. The book was $80 so I checked on Amazon, and just like many books online, it was half the cost. I like to support my local bookstores, but when the prices are that much cheaper online...

Yeah, I told myself I wouldn't be buying any more books this year until I finish off the one's still unread on the shelf but I justified that this is a photobook and not a book book and didn't feel all too guilty...

If you are a street photographer, you've probably heard of Vivian Maier.

To anyone not familiar with the photography world, Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was a street photographer of Chicago and New York documenting city life all while being a nanny for several families for her entire life. But nobody knew much about her hobby or how full of life her photographs were.

It wasn't until after her death that her photos finally became recognized. In the 2010's, her boxes of negative photographs were found in a storage house and because she didn't have kids of her own nor did she designate whom the photographs should go to, boxes of her work were sold at an auction.

One man bought some of those boxes containing 30,000 photo negatives for $400 and as he was scanning the negatives into the computer, he realized that these just weren't snapshots; he was sitting on a gold mine of some of the finest street photographs.

Then the photography community became involved trying to figure out who this mysterious Vivian Maier was, why she never sought to publish her work, why did she keep all this as a secret?

It's 2025 and we still don't have a grasp just how ahead of her time she was.

She's not only one of the best female photographers of all time. She is one of the greatest street photographers of all time.

Not only did she know how to find a good scene but she had complete mastery of the camera.

When I went through my local library's photography section, I would constantly be pulling out the books of Vivian Maier's black and white photobooks. The scenes of everyday life that we pass by every day and think nothing of it, Maier saw something in the mundane that none of us could see.

Everything of her black and white work that's been published I've seen most of them but very unfamiliar with her color work and that's why I ended up buying a copy to own. Obviously, you can find her work online and there's an instagram of her account showing her work but there's nothing like opening up a photobook to appreciate the work without the likes and comments attached at the bottom.

Have a look at the official(?) website that contains a lot of her street work. Even if you aren't a street photographer yourself, any one of her photobooks is worth owning.

https://www.vivianmaier.com/

Check Out My Book-Related Photographs

-thegirlwholeftthefridgeopen

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