People can always come up with esoteric reasons why things can't be true even when the contrary is obvious. Maier can be a great photographer simply based on her own work, influence be damned. But even that makes little sense. She can now influence the way we see Chicago during her time and her style can influence modern photographers.
Just to note, I have only seen a small sample of her work which I found to be very compelling. I'm not ready to beatify her yet but I would like to judge her on her work and not her place in someone's theories. On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Bob W <p...@web-options.com> wrote: >> http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/0 >> 1/cam >> > era-of-the-year-2010.html >> >> The above led me to this at the same site. >> http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_i >> ndex.html >> There is some discussion about what her status should be in the realm >> of photography. > > When I first saw her work after the link was posted here I thought about > that question. The other 'discovered too late' photographer who came to my > mind is not Atget but E J Belloq and also Lartigue. > > I think that Ken Tanaka is wrong to say "Maier can never be recognized [...] > mainly because she worked in utter isolation and influenced nothing in her > time" because she may influence people now that she has been discovered, if > her work has enough that is new. > > Similarly I think he is wrong to say "That is, her work is outstanding but > not important in the historical narrative of photography". I think it's too > early to tell - we haven't seen enough of the stuff yet, and we haven't seen > it for long enough to see what, if any, impact it might have. > > My view is that she probably _will_ become an interesting footnote, rather > like Belloq, but Belloq's work has been influential and it is important. > > If she had been 'in the game' at the time the other great Chicago > photographers were then it would have been a different story altogether. > > B > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- Steve Desjardins -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
