Vivi My Story is its fascinating esophotography. She took over 150,000 photos starting in the 1950s, all working as a nanny in the suburbs of Chicago. During her life, very few people ever saw her photos, though world may never have known her or not for collectors who water possessions in a store sale. But their accounts for people who knew her, a profile comes in a focus. An enigmatic woman, bold and brash in opinion needed, intensely private, possibly European, always with a camera around her neck. We may never know why she took all these photos to ultimately show so few, but her work tells us where she went, who she saw, and what made her great. For everyone could take three portraits like Meyer because not everyone saw the world like she did. She had an empathetic way of noticing a moment, focusing in on the detail, framing her image, and… she didn't crop, edit, or even develop much of her film, but she framed only what she wanted, bound by the square aspect ratio of her medium format role of flex. And I think part of the mythos of Meyer is how she had such a precise eye for photography but wasn't in our spy trade, and her talent could have easily been overlooked. But Meyer deeply understood tenets of interesting composition like leading lines, balance, layering textures, frames within a frame, the contrast of light and shadows all used to illustrate how she saw cities and people. She wasn't afraid to get less than a meter away from someone, using the discrete vfinder on top of the camera to capture portraits. Shooting from below eye level makes people even children look grand, defiant, and dignified. For instance, the perspective infuses this to guard chomping character full of confidence and bravado, holding its own against the larger than life buildings. Her subjects are sometimes posing, sometimes caught off guard, and sometimes completely oblivious, but her framing is always intentional. This precise composition becomes especially evident when you contrast Meyer to her contemporary, gary, winner grand. While Meyer often isolated a subject, winner grand shot is street photos wider, capturing multiple points of focus. The eye moves around the scenes full of life. His skeet frames create a sense of movement as if the photographer himself is a part of the action. Both Myers work, she fills a frame with purpose. She seared in on someone and got close enough to capture their idiosyncrasies, like this woman's grin in the man's grimace. The disheveled hair, the fun tie tucked into a shirt, the awkward grasp. All the details hint at a stranger's story, drawing us in even half a century later. Meyer noticed these intimate moments and real emotions on the streets and repeatedly captured them in children, conflict, and couples. With this couple lost in their own thoughts, you can feel the distance between them in this one silent moment, perfectly accented by the cherry blooms. Maybe she doesn't like blooms. Meyer caught these scenes because she was interested in the details and drama of everyday people. On photographing public events, she seemed more interested in the spectators than the spectacle, and she looked with care of the people who others might overlook completely, such as poor, elderly, or working people. Much of her work features figures sleeping in public, maybe because they allowed her to take a photo and detect it, maybe because they presented a vulnerable moment. To Meyer, they were all worthy subjects to study and photograph, each time creating a story of a big character in a big city. Meyer's subjects cannot be separated from their context. In fact, her photos strike an nostalgic chord because she was able to capture the spirit of the city and time. Sometime shots of her travels to France, Puerto Rico, India. But more often, the near-city in Chicago street saw the 1950s and 60s in striking black and white. Her artistic strengths come through in more ambiguous photos of people's backs, legs, or silhouettes. Non-descript figures create scenic photos, highlighting the era's city-scape or fashion trends. And there are other markers of the time, protests, politics, posters, lots of newspapers, mirroring her own tendency to hoard stacks of newspapers. And Meyer herself in shadow refluxion, as if to say, I was here too. On her walks, Meyer would document Chicago's near-bidson downtown, often times bringing along the children in her care. She took about 12 shots per role per day, some days more, some days less. Her contact sheets reflect her ability to snap a photo and continue long journey. It took time, and dissipation of action, and an eye for noticing an interesting form. This undated contact sheet shows her journey through a Nixon rally, featuring a sad clown and native American musicians. You can see her movement as she shoots from close, medium, and far range, covering the event as a photojournalist would. But she also takes artistic liberties, such as using foreground objects to create framing and depth. She photographs the performers in attendees, the location and details, capturing a sense of the event in just 12 shots. Meyer shot with color film as early as 1955, but much of this work was taken throughout the 60s and the 70s. We'll see with 35mm cameras on co-dact-ector chrome film. Her favorite motifs continue, but a sense of irony also comes through in Meyer's color photographs. She was set to have a strange sharp sense of humor. Her framing creates an atmosphere or even structures narrative. For instance, these women's at the perspective and emotion through which we view the men and suits. As many appointed out, the women are quite literally marginalized. And she plays with pops of primary colors, especially red accents. Also, the bright yellow guns to crush car, an aligning out and smiling adults' rainy full clothes, and a crying boy complimenting the canopy. Actually, a lot of twin elements here. Two women, two children, two smiling and two not. The blonde hair and the dark hair thread the navy to buildings to-ish cars. And in fact, several subjects appear color-cordinated to match their respective environments. Overall, the effect is a mix of melancholy and whimsical and eccentric. An ordinate day was something just a little out of place. Meyer died at the Javadi 3 in 2009. She had never even developed thousands of her photos. She didn't have a say in the reproduction, editing, curation, or widespread marketing of her work. By many accounts, she would have hated this scrutiny of her life. We don't know how she would want to work to be seen and we don't know how she would feel about the worldwide recognition. We're simply looking through a viewfinder and can only empathize.