{"id":107054,"date":"2022-02-28T16:24:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T15:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=107054"},"modified":"2022-02-28T23:08:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T22:08:30","slug":"a-story-in-a-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.centmagazine.co.uk\/?p=107054","title":{"rendered":"A Story in a Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Capturing a moment; a snap in a fraction of a second; the click of the finger on the button. Joy, pain, absurdity, heartbreak and passion all caught in a slither of time. A sea of human emotions, caught in someone’s momentary glimpse; caught for eternity. However, as quickly as we may look at the image we may forget that whatever was captured could have been part of a much bigger story, partial strands of someones life. Yet maybe the image gives clues to the story; because, after all, one single shot can give an insight to a whole life; a picture might reflect a hundred stories captured in that very split second. Here is a little history of a few photographers who via cameras, spun life, in all its layers of glory, into their photographic images. You might look at art as a picture and just see a moment captured but beneath the surface when you look deeper it can echo the layers of a whole life. Find out more in A Story in a Moment<\/em> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with an insight into a very interesting woman\u2019s life. One who lead a mysterious double-life in Chicago in the 1950s. Vivian Maier, was born in New York in 1926 to Austro-Hungarian father and French mother, and grew up to be one of the greatest photographers known in the 20th<\/sup> century. Fascinatingly, Vivian this infamous woman actually remained anonymous almost all through her life. Her art came to light only in 2007, when all her photographs were found piled up in a Chicago storage locker after she had died. These images were then later auctioned to become one of the greatest photographic discoveries of all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vivian carried her Rolleiflex Camera everywhere, capturing more than 150,000 images in her lifetime. She seemed to have (from her images) an extraordinary fascination for observing people going about their ordinary life. Her portraits cover a vast number of scenes from glamorous housewives to carefree children, momentary lapses of all the highs and lows. The very everyday humanness of the lives in any major city was recorded by her, almost telling tales of those cities. Her art was a gateway to moment of everydayness; images to linger and ‘fall into’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vivian Maier, Self-portrait, not dated
\u00a9Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Vivian Maier, September 18, 1962 \u00a9 Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vivian worked almost 40 years of her life as a nanny to the high-class families in New York and Chicago. She was known to the children as \u201ca real-life Mary-Poppins\u201d. Maier tucked away her identity and was known to be a very private person, although her curiosity for life and people may be well reflected in her photographs. There is almost a personal feeling of enquiry in the way she viewed her subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vivian\u2019s proficiency reflected the beauty of life around, creating a distinctive record of urban America in the 1950s and 60s. Maier carried Super 8 as well as the 16mm camera, and prints, reems of undeveloped films and audio tapes that she shared with no one all her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vivian Maier, New York, September 3, 1954<\/em>
\u00a9Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Vivian Maier, New York, December 2, 1954 <\/em>
\u00a9Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vivian was self-taught, her craft was experimental and yet vibrant and interesting. Her story was conveyed through an Oscar-winning documentary, Finding Vivian Maier released in 2013. As an ode to her legacy, her work is going to be exhibited in the UK\u2019s MK Gallery from June, this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Parr, is also a living exemplary British Photographer who played around producing iconic images starting from 1950s of the great British public; his work, intimate, satirical and anthropological. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin\u2019s photographs are well archived in his new book photobook, Deja View which was created alongside images from \u2018The Anonymous Project\u2019 (archive of unidentified vintage photographic images). Surprising and delightful in their similarity, those unknown and those on Martin’s, these affectionately matched images give a delicious feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, while reminding us of photography\u2019s greatest power: to intimately preserve everyday moments of humour, warmth, ennui and absurdity; some from the famous lens of Parr others from an unknown source. The juxtaposition deeply intriguing but yet again images you want to sit and spend time with, getting to ‘know’ the chosen characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Deja View by Martin Parr and The Anonymous project published by Hoxton Mini Press.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Deja View by Martin Parr and The Anonymous project published by Hoxton Mini Press. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A yet another distinctive piece of work Martin Parr has delivered is his documentation on capturing live moments of the English social classes along the seaside, named \u2018Life\u2019s a Beach\u2019. Parr reckons that the beach is an affectionate location that allows people to be themselves and he sees this scenario as an opportunity to experiment with his ideas, styles and approaches with camera. His photographs depict naked emotions of people unbothered. Hence, these pivotal moments encapsulate Martin\u2019s extrinsic idealisation of a beach scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giant is a 15,000 square foot gallery in Bournemouth, programmed to feature major international artists and their work. Martin Parr\u2019s Life\u2019s a Beach will be exhibited this year from April onwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n