Maier was born on the 1st February 1926 in New York. She took over 150,000 photos in her lifetime. In around 1956, Maier decided to switch to colour photography. This gave her photos a more refined look. At the beginning of her photography career , Maier took close up shots of New York civilians. As she began her coloured work, objects such as newspapers and items in bins replaced the civilian photos. Her work shows a variety of thoughts and emotions , from joy to fear. Maier took various shots of a range of people. Upper class citizens to paupers.
Maier was a nanny for around 4 decades while taking photos secretly. Her work varies from abstract to candid photography. From looking at Maier's contact sheet, it seems she was very conservative when taking photos, typically only taking one photo per scene. As camera reels were limited,only when she found something really interesting, she only took several photos of scenes that she thought was really interesting.
Her portraiture shows the subjects emotions in one still and although I do not plan to capture characters thoughts and feelings, the buildings in the background is my focus for my work. I want to highlight the key composition lines as the focus in my work.
