寻找薇薇安·迈尔

矛盾
Paradoxical.
-大胆 -对
-Bold. -Yeah.
神秘
Mysterious.
古怪
Eccentric.
古怪
Eccentric.
隐私
Private.
她非常非常注重隐私
She was a very, very private woman.
我从没想过她会拍照
I never had any idea she took pictures.
她拍照片 好多好多照片
She would take photographs. Many, many photographs.
她不会想要这一切发生的
She would never have let this happen.
你是否希望自己过去能做出不同的举动…
Is there anything that you wish you had done differently than…
当然 我希望发现那些底片的人是我而不是你
Sure. I wish I would have found those negatives instead of you.
寻找薇薇安·迈尔
十美元…加价吧 十刀
Ten dollars… Let’s go harder. Ten bucks.
那只能五美元成交了 我就可以…
Then I’ll have to end in five. So can I have…
那是2007年冬
It was winter 2007.
我得上七 有七吗 七块半 十
I’ll have to go seven, anyone at seven? Seven and a half. Ten.
十 10美元成交…
And ten, gotta go $10…
拍卖♥♥行和我家就隔一条街
The auction house is across the street from my home.
我发现这个箱子装满了底片
I found this box that was loaded with negatives.
70美元 那有75…80美元
$70. 75 there… $80.
我那时在写一本历史的书 我需要巨多的历史照片
I was writing a history book, and I needed a lot of historic photos.
所以我会
And so I would, like, you know,
拿这底片对着光看
take the negatives and I’d look up into the light,
寻找芝加哥的影像
and I’d look for images of Chicago.
150 160…
150, 160…
那一套有很多箱子
There were several boxes that went with the set.
我只想要最大的那个
I just went for the biggest one.
买♥♥家是39号♥ 买♥♥家是39号♥
39 is your buyer, 39 is your buyer.
我用了 我记得是380美元买♥♥到的
I won it for, I think it was $380.
拍卖♥♥行告诉我那名摄影家
The auction house told me the photographer,
她的名字是薇薇安·迈尔
her name was Vivian Maier.
谷歌♥了她…一无所获
Google searched her… nothing at all.
我的意思是 一丁点都没有
I mean, absolutely nothing.
所以有段时间我就只能放弃了
So I just kind of gave up for a while.
那晚我看其中一些东西
I looked at some of the stuff that night,
挺酷的 但是书里都用不到
and it was cool, but nothing worked for the book,
我就把它搁在橱子里
so I just put it in the closet.
我得搞清楚 该拿这堆东西怎么办
I just had to figure out, what am I going to do with this stuff?
我就想到要去扫描它们
That’s what sparked me to start scanning it.
对于事情最终的走向 我有一丝感应
I have a reflex, where we’ll be driving somewhere,
我会在此事的进程中发现些东西
and I’ll just, like, spot something from down the road
我会知道它是什么 会知道它珍如隋珠
that I know what it is and I know that it’s valuable.
我和我兄弟是在跳蚤市场里做买♥♥卖♥♥长大的
I grew up doing the flea markets with my brother.
我父亲也做这行 他的父亲也做这行
My father did it. His father did it.
我会和我兄弟参加储物拍卖♥♥
I would do storage auctions with my brother.
他会竞得一些东西 我们会清理掉它们
And he’d win some, and we’d clean ’em out.
我们扔掉过成吨♥的底片
We threw out tons of negatives.
对绝大多数贩子来说 底片没有任何价值
Cos there’s no value in negatives to most resale people.
我发现的这些底片 在我第一眼看来
And these negatives that I discovered, what I saw at first,
我不知道它们够不够好
I didn’t know if it was really good.
只知道我自认为它们不错
I knew that I thought it was good.
我联♥系♥了几家画廊
I contacted a couple of galleries.
我不知道要去哪儿
I didn’t know where to go.
我搭了个摄影博客 上传了大概200张照片
I made a photo blog and I put about 200 images up.
由约翰·马洛夫上传
该拿这组照片怎么办
我在Flickr[图片分享网站]上放了一条链接
I put a link on Flickr.
除了送给你外
那条分享人气爆棚
That post, it just went insane.
惊艳 谢谢分享
好正
惊艳 谢谢你
惊人的发现
我爱这组照片
我只能说 赞
所以我继续下去 凑齐她剩下的作品
So I went on this mission to piece together the rest of her work.
今夜拍卖♥♥
然后 我找到其他箱子的买♥♥主
And then, I found the other people who bought boxes,
买♥♥下了他们的箱子
and I bought their boxes.
然后我就有了这一整套底片 多到发疯的负片
And then I had all these negatives, like, insane amounts of negatives.
你会想知道这些作品背后是谁
You always want to know who is behind the work.
我只知道她的名字是薇薇安·迈尔
I just knew her name was Vivian Maier.
她是个记者 职业摄影师
Was she a journalist? Professional photographer?
“让我再谷歌♥一下她的名字看看有什么结果”
“Let me just Google her name again to see if there’s anything up.”
我找到了一篇在搜索前几天刚发布的讣告
And I found an obituary that was placed just a few days before that search.
薇薇安·迈尔
安详离世
我在她的物品里找到一个地址
I found an address in her stuff.
在几次无果的搜索之后
And after some, like, WhitePages searches,
我打了个电♥话♥ 说
I called, and I said,
“我有一些作品…薇薇安·迈尔的底片”
“I have the work… the negatives of Vivian Maier.”
他的反应是 “那是我的保姆”
And he was like, “Oh, that was my nanny.”
是他的保姆
That was his nanny.
为什么一个保姆…
Why is a nanny…
要拍这些照片
taking all these photos?
他们所讲述的她的事情
What they started to tell me about her
是…是怪异的
was… was strange.
他说 “她算是个孤独的人
He said, “She was kind of a loner.
“据我们所知她没有家人
“She didn’t have any family that we knew of.
“她从未有过恋人 也没有子女
“She never had any love life or children that we knew of.
“但她有点像我们的母亲”
“But she was like our mother.”
这勾起了我的好奇心
So it just caught my curiosity.
因此我说 “你们留有她的什么物品吗”
So what I said was, “Do you have any of her stuff?”
他们说
And they said,
“我一直存着她储物箱的单子
“Well, I’ve been keeping up the bills on her storage lockers.
“我们想统统扔光 她就是只驮鼠”
“We wanna throw all the stuff out. She was a pack rat.”
我说 “不 不 不 别”
I said, “No, no, no, don’t.”
他说 “你不懂 她和驮鼠一样爱收藏东西
He’s like, “You don’t understand. She was a pack rat.
“我们会搬一只垃圾箱来 欢迎你来帮我们
“We’re gonna get a dumpster. You’re welcome to come and help us.
“要是你看上了什么我们要扔掉的
“If you see anything that you like that we’re gonna throw out,
“你可以拿走”
“you can have.”
我只想弄清她是谁 仅此而已
I just wanted to go find out who she was. Just a quick thing.
我找到一只皮箱
I found this leather chest.
它被胶带封死
It was, like, taped shut with just, like, box tape or something.
于是我们剪掉胶带 打开皮箱
And so we cut it and we opened it.
它被未冲印的胶卷塞得满满当当
And it was filled to the top with rolls of undeveloped film.
我拿起一盒摇了摇 它咯咯直响
I took one canister and I shook it, and it rattled.
打开后发现里面是牙齿
So I opened it and there was teeth inside.
她把东西嵌藏在其它东西里
She had stuff wedged and hidden in everything that she had.
像是她的小物件的
Almost like… it’s like a secret little
小藏宝地
hiding spot for all of her little things.
优♥惠♥券 便条
A coupon, a note,
传♥单♥ 公车票 火车票
a flyer, bus passes, train cards.
她的帽子 鞋子
Her hats. Shoes.
她的大衣 她的衬衫
Her coats, her blouses.
来自政♥府♥多达数千美元的
I have uncashed income tax cheques from the government
未兑现所得税支票
amounting to thousands of dollars.
大约十万张底片
I have around 100,000 negatives.
七百卷未冲印的彩色胶卷
I have 700 rolls of undeveloped colour film.
两千卷未冲印的黑白胶卷
2,000 undeveloped rolls of black-and-white film.
我意识到这些都需要整理扫描和归档
I realised everything needs to be organised and scanned and archived.
但这远超我一个人所能处理的
But it was more than I could handle myself.
所以我想 “看看博物馆会不会帮我
So I thought, “Let’s see what the museums will do to help me.
“也许能送去现代艺术博物馆
“Maybe I could get this into MoMA.
“也许能送去泰特当代美术馆”
“Maybe I could get this into Tate Modern.”
我给他们寄…信
I sent them… letters.
这是回信
And here is the reply.
“亲爱的马洛夫先生 谨代表策展人
“Dear Mr. Maloof, on behalf of the curators,
“我向您表示谢意
“I would like to thank you for thinking of
“多谢您考虑现代艺术博物馆的摄影部
“the Department of Photography at MoMA.
“很遗憾 我博物馆暂无法
“Unfortunately, the museum cannot accommodate
“容存这批照片”
“these photographs at this time.”
那时
At that point,
我意识到 “要靠自己了
I just figured, “I’m on my own.
“我要试着办一次展览
“I’m gonna try to do an exhibition.
“我要写一本书”