Good points. But I think things need to be nuanced.

That is somewhat shocking to know that Winogrand left about 300K views he never saw, but that probably does not reflect the situation he was into earlier in his career. It is probably true that he was “outran by his own process”, as Michael Murphy put it, but the huge amount of orphan views might have been a very consequence of a late career crisis rather, as evoked by Szarkowski in his essay for book “Figments from the real world”, being like “an overheated engine” with his motorized Leica. But I think that Winogrand had control on his output routine before -which is the same used by Henri Wessel who does not seem to be disinterested in the final print- I don’t think he got disinterested in the final result that fast, because he often said he learned from the photographs he made and talked about his work prints, not to mention that he had strong views on how a good print should look like. So, he might as well needed to see the end result in some way, be it just a contact sheet.

As far as Vivian Maier is concerned I feel there is too few things we know about her so far. At least we know that she did some prints. She probably could not afford (time wise and money wise) a proper exploitation of her work,, but that does not mean she was not interested. One thing which is often eluded when speaking about VM, as opposed to other well-known street photographers is that she was not a professional photographer. That may sound obvious but from a very practical and day-to-day perspective that changes much. Today we can’t say she was not interested in seeing the final result. It was probably much easier for her to shoot than to have the print done, that is all. Anyway she did some prints, and maybe she showed them, maybe she had bad feedback… The few bits we know about her tend to make us draw a certain prefabricated profile of her, as a private person not keen to show her work etc… But the reality might have been different.

It’s really great that her work has safely found it’s way to people who have recognised its value and respect it, but at the same time the degree of gratitude everyone feels about this (and I share it as well) seems to be clouding people’s thinking somewhat. The fact that she was still alive when her work was auctioned off but nobody could find her in time to speak to her about her work, is incredibly sad and makes it far too easy to mythologise her.

Hopefully, the indisputable quality of her work will shine through inevitable attempts to turn Vivianne Meier into a brand.

And who knows, maybe we will find out that she did try to get noticed and no one cared? Fascinating story to see unfold.

He says: “I get totally out of myself, it’s the closest I come to not existing”
And then they cut to a sigh of satisfaction, it’s sunny and he is in his element on the street. You can tell he is just loving being out there shooting, more so than the clip of him looking at contact sheets.

The active side of improv is great for performers and somewhat ok for writers/creators. Helps develop skills later used for canonic theater, loosens actors and what not, it’s a great exercise.
The passive (spectator) side however I always had the feeling it was more interesting for the theater person than for the outside spectator. Because you could find those tricks and resources, the thought process, see it develop. Ultimately the experience as theater person spectator was made better if you had been doing improv. Because you knew what it was all about, the tricks and trades.
Maybe it was me and a bias against improv or maybe it was the improv I was exposed to. This shouldn’t be a universal rule, just my experience.

The analogy I think of between street photography and improv is on a different plane. I get the feeling SP is training for photographers and is rarely appreciated by the non-photography crew, for reasons similar to those with improv. This is not absolutely true; some photographers train with SP but others live on it, some non-photographers adore SP and others believe they can do just the same.
There is however that correlation between the unstaged or the unexpected. Which again is a weak one; the role as an improviser has (generally) more influence on the environment than the role of a street photographer.

Or the other stronger correlation that sp and improvisational theater will be looked as minor representations of its art. By those who have never tried them, might I add.

C’mon, Winnorgrad (and probably Maier) knew what the hell they were doing and likely using cameras with results they knew like the back of their hands. Yeah, wandering the streets was probably the real art of it but you might be making a bit of a leap in assuming they didn’t care about what they were recording. they knew what they were doing, processing the work wasn’t realized and that’s a shame, indeed because they probably didn’t have the means or time on earth to do so.