Vivian Maier Research

This is an example of a reflection photo that Vivian Maier took where she photographs herself in the reflection. At a first glance, I thought this was quite confusing as the photo contains a lot of overlapping parts and because it's reflection rather than a straight up object or person, it isn't clear how the picture is taken and what's what. However after focusing on the picture and seeing the image with it's separate parts, I could identify that's she is looking into a room that contains a mirror and she has taken the picture from outside the room looking through a window, which is why there is a little and clear reflection and the bigger less defined reflection of herself. I think with an image like this, if you had never walked passed a window with a mirror on the inside of the room, you wouldn't realise what the image is, maybe making it difficult to see this picture as art. However, I think this picture should be considered as art because I think the way she shot it is very creative and I like how there's the focus of the room and the mirror but at the same time theres a focus on the bigger reflection of her in the window.

Vivian Maier is an american photographer born in 1926, she has travelled around america visiting many cities to capture the architecture. She is known for experimenting with street photography, reflections and she often uses self portraiture, especially in relation to reflection.

Reflection is a way of manipulating perception of things and objects. People can see a reflection of something completely different to how it actually is. This is thought to be why she involved herself in her images. As a way of seeing herself and a way of others seeing her as how she wanted to be perceived rather than how she actually is. Bad aspects of her life suggests she wanted to escape that in her photography. Also another reason why she used this theme so much was because it was a way of representing that she can look into places and see what's inside but she's not actually in there. She's 'stuck' on the outside.