“Narrow Street in Saint Bonnet en Champsaur I & II“, by Vivian Maier in France, 1950 or 1951. Two vintage prints included in the Vivian Maier Genesis of Genius exhibition. They are reproduced here with educational commentary to accompany the exhibition of Vivian Maier’s earliest known photographs.
Collectors and practitioners of black and white film photography will recognise “Narrow Street in Saint Bonnet I & II” by Vivian Maier, 1950 or 1951 as being printed about one f-stop apart by the printer to give their customer the option of exposing for the sky or the shadow. These two images side by side are an important lesson in photographic printing from a master of photography.
The lesson in these days of digital photography is not as relevant with the improved light sensors in the cameras, but the photos serve to remind photographers not to lose their subject in the shadows. This is most often happens during bright sunny days, or around noon and when shadows are strong in the afternoons, when the contrast between the sun light areas and shadows are vat extremes. We generally expose for the shadows.
Vivian Maier’s experiment in exposure
As the treasure trove of Vivian Maier’s photographs is auctioned and released to the public, seen by photo editors for the first time, we are seeing how she developed into one of the master photographers of the 20th century. Not an unremarkable image shows that Vivian was interested in seeing the perspective lines created by the street, leading to an archway framing her subject of a woman shopping. The angled roof makes a nice juxtaposition in the top of the image. Vivian is learning her craft and the simple difference that one f-stop makes.
In the first print, Maier’s printer carefully exposes the top half of the image at a different f-stop than the shadows in the lower half. By manipulating the enlarger’s settings, she controls the amount of light that reaches each section of the print, resulting in a delicate balance between highlights and shadows. The woman shopping in the foreground is bathed in gentle illumination, while the architectural details of the buildings in the background emerge from the darkness with newfound clarity.
In the second print, the printer adjusts the exposure settings to highlight different elements of the scene, creating a distinct visual narrative that complements the first print. Details that were once obscured in shadow now take center stage, inviting the viewer to explore the rich tapestry of textures and tones that define the narrow street.
“Narrow Street in Saint Bonnet en Champsaur I & II“, by Vivian Maier, 1950 or 1951. © 2017 The Estate of Vivian Maier. All rights reserved. These two prints from Vivian Maier’s time in Saint Bonnet en Champsaur, France are two versions of the same negative, printed about one f-stop apart to darken and define the angle of the roof near the top of the frame.
It is unclear whether the printer included the reprint while they were doing the initial print run (likely) or if Vivian asked for a darker image to be printed. We can imagine Vivian being friendly with the staff who developed and printed them at her favourite photo shop, which she also photographed in her photo essay “Narrow Streets” in France.
The simple difference that one f-stop makes and the trade-off in losing detail in the blacks while gaining detail in the whites. The printer has not used ‘burn and dodge’ which in this image would be moving a single piece of card across the horizontal centre, about in the middle to expose both the top and bottom halves evenly. We shall play with this and post the result soon.
This photograph was amongst a cache included at an auction in a photo essay called “Narrow Streets” from Vivian Maier’s early days photographing with a Kodak Box Brownie. Photographers can look at photos like this and learn what has gone right and what they need to do differently in future. Maier has framed the shot in an old part of a town in France well. The perspective lines of the background streets and buildings is centred, as she has done in other photos from this series.
Get close to the subject
If the woman had been closer to the camera, the result could have been a masterpiece. Every photo, whether aesthetically pleasing or mediocre, is a lesson. A more experienced photographer could recognise that a good photograph was developing in the scene unfolding before them, and keep exploring with her camera as the woman with her shopping approached.
Are Vivian Maier photographs valuable?
Vivian Maier took more than 100,000 photos, the vast majority of her work surfaced as negatives, making all vintage prints exceedingly rare and limited in number. In curating this exhibition of these remarkable photographs we must note that current prices of the vintage prints being offered by Roy Slattery generally start at $1,000 with the top third of lots selling over $2,000 per print.
The art collecting world is onto the rising value of these original vintage prints by a famed artist that is a safer investment than Bitcoin. To properly appraise this diptych, we start with its recent history purchased at auction in a series of nine, with a total value of $1,500 in 2024. Given the limited numbers of verified available original Vivian Maier prints, we estimate these two pictures to attract bids over $1,000 at auction in the near future.
How many vintage prints by Vivian Maier are there? ArtNet has only 19 listed prints. Vivian Maier’s time in France are a special period in her photographic achievements. Literally where it all began.
Even during Vivian’s first steps as a photographer we can see her noticing the layering of her content into fore, middle and background, as championed by Andre Kertesz, a pioneer of street & fine art photography. Kertész was active in Paris from 1925 before immigrating to the United States in 1936. These early photos by Vivian Maier suggest she had been reading about photography and the masters for some time before she was inspired to acquire a camera and take up photography.
If someone knows the location of this passage in France, please comment below. In the “Narrow Streets” series were two sets of duplicates vintage prints. One set, above, tested exposure of about one f-stop … the other two prints of the same photographs show Vivian’s early foray into printing her fine art work …
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