Vivian Maier                                                          

Though Maier was born in America it was in France that she had spent most of her youth. This was in fact because her mother was originally French she would tend to return to the country often. Her father was Hungarian, however census seems to indicate that he was off the scene from a very early age. Maier lived with just her mother and Jeanne Bertrand, who was an award winning photographer, and it is obvious as to what sparked the interest in photography.

  Sometime at around age 23, whilst still in France, Maier began to experiment with a modest Kodak Brownie Box camera which seemed to stand almost as an obstacle between the image that she wanted to capture and what was actually produced. It had only one shutter speed, no focus control, and no aperture dial and was apparently very inaccurate.

   Several years later Maier returned to the US and became a nanny however in her leisure time she continued her street photography. She soon moved to Chicago where she was employed by a family that would stay with for most of her life and here she was able to continue to indulge in her passion of photography not just by upgrading her equipment but she was also given a private bathroom in which she would hang negatives.

Maier stayed with this family however she herself did not ever marry nor have children and nor did she have any close friends. It is thought that this could be due to her being far too absorbed in her passion, some however would call it an obsession.

In this particular photograph Maier has captured an image with a close moment between a small child and two members of her family. This natural shot shows the everyday life of the people in the city whilst encapsulating a moment of closeness between the child and carers. The holding of hands strengthens the link between the three people and makes the viewer feel close enough to feel the warmth and trust between the three however the fact that the child is not looking at the camera creates a distance between the viewer and the group.  

As you can see in my own photograph I have captured a similar warm and tender moment between a mother and child. In contrast with Maier's photograph which has a group of three this particular image that I have captured shows a warm and intimate moment of just two on a cold winters night. A similarity between the two however shows that both of these images have a warming, caring and trusting feeling as both images have a vulnerable child whose hand is being held securely by a mother or carer. In the image that I have presented the main factor that makes the biggest difference is the fact that the child is looking at the camera in my photograph, this creates a closeness letting the viewer into the intimate moment between mother and child making the viewer feel closer to it however in Maier's photograph the child looking away creates more distance making the tender moment more secluded between the group.