Taureans are alert, outgoing, and adaptable. Generally speaking, they are curious and love learning new things. Through photography, they may capture the different events and people they encounter. Their communicative nature allows them to connect with subjects and use their photos to tell compelling stories.

Showing now in her hometown of New York, the first major retrospective in the United States showcasing the work of the late photographer Vivian Maier. This article discusses the extraordinary story of one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century and how her work was only discovered after her death.

Vivian Maier was an American street photographer who was posthumously recognized for her exceptional work. Born on February 1, 1926, in New York City, Maier spent much of her childhood in France before returning to the United States, where she worked as a nanny for various families in Chicago for about four decades. Despite her lifelong passion for photography, Maier’s work remained unknown during her lifetime.

Maier’s photography primarily consists of candid street scenes in Chicago and New York during the 1950s and 1960s. Her keen eye for composition, light, and the human condition has been widely praised, drawing comparisons to renowned street photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus. Maier’s work captures a broad spectrum of society, often focusing on marginalized communities, and offers a compelling, unfiltered glimpse into mid-20th-century urban life. Maier’s job as a caretaker allowed her to continue pursuing photography while feeding her interest in capturing childhood through her lens.

Maier’s self-portraits mark milestones in her body of work as she experiments with a variety of visual devices and typologies to signify her presence in the image, such as playing with shadows and projected silhouettes, reflections, and image within an image.

Maier took photos for herself alone and had a fierce desire for privacy; combined with a lack of stability in her career and finances, this prevented her from developing her own film. She placed undeveloped, unprinted work in storage with her other belongings in the early 2000s when she moved between living in a small studio apartment and being unhoused. Due to unpaid rental fees, the negatives were auctioned off by the storage company in 2007, and a large portion were purchased by John Maloof. Maloof, a filmmaker and photographer himself, became the first person to bring Maier’s work into the public eye and began to promote it widely just after her passing in 2009. Since then, Maier’s work has gained global acclaim and is now featured in a major exhibition at Fotografiska Museum in New York.

Unseen Work will run from May 31 through September 29, 2024 at Fotografiska, New York and features approximately 230 works from the early 1950s to the late 1990s, including vintage and modern prints, color, black and white, super 8 films, and audio recordings, offering a complete vision of the artist’s rich archive, which serves as a fascinating testimony to post-war America and the facade of the American dream. “Fotografiska is proud to be the first museum in Vivian Maier’s hometown of New York to present a large-scale exhibition of her work,” says Sophie Wright, Executive Director of Fotografiska. “The story of the discovery of her extraordinary archive transcends photography, and her talent has captivated audiences worldwide. We’re grateful to be able to share her work for existing fans to enjoy while giving new audiences a chance to discover her.”

Unseen Work will shed new light on Maier’s extensive body of work and focus on the major themes that defined her creative output. In street scenes and sidewalk chronicles, portraits and self-portraits, as well as gestures, fragmentation and repetition, color photography, cinetism, and film, Maier took a humanist approach to photography that resulted in meticulous documentation of the major socio-political changes of the period. Many of Maier’s images and portraits observe in detail the working-class neighborhoods in New York and Chicago that she explored from many angles. “Vivian Maier captures the often challenging realities of American life in the late 20th century with great empathy and nuance,” says Anne Morin, director of diChroma photography and the show’s curator. “This is a homecoming, and we are thrilled to collaborate with Fotografiska to bring Vivian’s work back to New York, a city that informed and inspired some of her best work.” With a focus on people on the margins of society who weren’t usually photographed and of whom images were rarely published, Maier’s austere portraits were taken on city streets the moment before the subject realized they were being photographed and provide a truly candid view into the times.

Practicing photography was one of the only ways Vivian Maier could make sense of the world and express herself freely. Maier’s work reveals how distant the American Dream is for most Americans, portraying through photography and film the everyday challenges they face that prevent them from economic mobility – debilitating poverty, long hours of labor, depression – some of which she experienced herself before receiving financial support later in life from the children she once nannied.

Fotografiska is the contemporary museum for photography, art, and culture. Founded in Stockholm in 2010 and led globally by its Chairman Yoram Roth, Fotografiska is a destination to discover world-class photography, eclectic programming, elevated dining, and surprising new perspectives. Guided by a mission to inspire a more conscious world through the power of photography, art, and culture, Fotografiska produces dynamic and unparalleled rotating exhibitions, spanning various genres in inclusive environments. With a dedicated international community and locations in Stockholm, New York City, Tallinn, Berlin, and Shanghai, Fotografiska is the premier global gathering place for photography and culture.

Unseen Work will run at Fotografiska New York until September 29, 2024.

All images © Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. via Fotografiska

Yet another card reader to review this week, with promises that this delivers faster-than-ever transfer speeds. Today I’m testing the Dockcase DPR81F smart hub and card reader, and get this, it’s got a screen attached.

History

Dockcase has a previous history of producing great value products at reasonable prices, so I was keen to test the newest iteration of a card reader and dock all-in-one that’s made in a handy carry-everywhere size.

The Product and Build Quality

Sent in a relatively plain design but Apple-style premium packaging, it comes only with a 40 Gbps/100 W patch USB-C cable in black. I would have liked to have seen a quick start guide included or maybe a QR code where I could be directed to one online, but nothing was included. This feels like a premium product partly due to the weight and the metal build quality rather than cheap plastic, but I would have liked to have seen a quick start guide with it included or maybe a link to other products they do, and they have missed a trick not including one here. With a shiny touchscreen, you don’t want it getting scratched in a bag, so this would be a must for inclusion with the finalized product. In black, this looks sleek.

This has an 8-in-one slot operation with a touchscreen information/swipe replacement for a standard analog key, which is responsive and works well.

The slots included are as follows

• HDMI (4K 120Hz Display)
• UHS-II
• CFexpress Type A
• CFexpress Type B
• USB-A
• USB-C 
• USB-C (100 W Power)
• MicroSD Transflash (TF)

This is impressive simply because I can carry around one small dock rather than two or three separate card readers (normally I’ll have an HDMI to USB-C connector plus CFexpress and a standard card reader in my bag).

Features

The beauty of this device is that it has all of these ports in one unit. I love that idea and will certainly be using this out in the field more. The one thing I did notice when connecting the USB-C charger and HDMI was that it got hot. Not massively, but about 45-50 degrees, which I’m informed is within standard operating tolerances. The underside has a ridged aluminum surface which helps disperse the heat, but it’s just my personal opinion here and caused no real issues. The transfer speeds were fast but not as fast as some of the other standalone card readers I have, the tests of which are all to follow.

All tests were conducted using Lexar memory cards, specifically a Lexar 128 GB Professional CFexpress Type B Card GOLD Series, a Lexar 128 GB Professional 2000x UHS-II SDXC Memory Card and a 3.6 GHz 8-core Intel i9 iMac 2019 with 64 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD on OS Sonoma 14.5. I used the Blackmagic Design Speed Test App, which can be downloaded for free from the App Store or Blackmagic’s website. I also used the same (included) cable in all the tests to minimize cable faults or differing speeds due to different cable lengths, speeds, or quality.

The first speed test was done using the Lexar 128GB Professional CFexpress Type B Card GOLD Series card since this is the one I use and keep in my Canon R5. I was keen to see how the dock compares to my regular SanDisk card reader (a SanDisk Extreme Pro), which only reads CFexpress Type B and has no other ports on it.

The Dockcase unit was first tested. See results below.

The speeds that the Dockcase produced were slightly (but not significantly) lower but not enough for me to consider leaving it at home.

Below are the test results for the SanDisk Extreme Pro card reader.

As you can see, it is not significantly different, but enough that if you were buying this for transfer speeds alone you might consider a single faster standalone unit. The same was not the truth when testing with the Lexar 128GB Professional 2000x UHS-II SDXC Memory Card against the Lexar LRW500U Card Reader, which produced speeds slightly faster.

The above was the Dockcase; below are the real-time results from the Lexar LRW500U Card Reader.

The Lexar card reader was slightly slower on average, and given the circumstances, I realize that a product is more than just read-write speeds. It’s good to look at all these factors when making an informed choice and buying a new product.

Summary

What I Liked 

Would I buy one of these? Yes, I would, and I’m recommending it because it’s a single-designed sleek unit with all the card ports and connectors you’re going to need for the foreseeable future, so I don’t find myself having to carry lots of dongles and additional card readers around. It’s got a great look, and it’s authentically heavy enough to feel like a quality build too.

What Could Be Improved

Well, it’s one of the fastest card readers out there on the market, and I’d like to see a carry case or a bag included with it to stop the screen from being scratched in a laptop bag or even it scratching other devices. I wouldn’t even have minded if it was available as a separate purchase. The ability to change color themes on the device (maybe a matrix-style green or mono theme or a blue, green, or orange theme) might be nice but not essential to the workings of it. They need a quick start guide or a link to one in the case or even a QR code on the inside of the box. It feels incomplete without one.

You can find Dockcase and all the information about it and other products here. When their crowdfunding campain ends, you’ll be able to find it along with other products on Amazon here.

When Michael Magill moved to Wyoming in 2015, one of the first things he learned about was Steamboat, the iconic rodeo bronc that very few cowboys could ever ride whose spirit was indelibly captured by the famous bucking horse logo first developed by the University of Wyoming and later by the state of Wyoming.

The trademarked visage is literally everywhere. It’s on every license plate. It graces keychains and T-shirts. It’s on coffee mugs and stickers and all manner of other creations — including a special bucking horse Christmas decoration in Cheyenne.

The more Magill learned about Steamboat, the more taken the well-known rodeo photographer became with the idea of one day capturing a modern-day shot that would evoke the whole Steamboat legend.

“It’s the most iconic thing,” Magill said. “So, every time we’d look through photos, I’d check the ones that were close. But there was never one that was exactly right.”

Magill, who lives in Cheyenne, has taken literally thousands of bucking bronc photos since beginning to take rodeo photos in 2021 at Tom Horn Days in Bosler, Wyoming.

None of them ever quite passed muster. Until that is, June 15, at Chugwater Roundup’s Bracket Bronc Riding. There Magill believes he finally captured a horse in mid buck that matched the state’s iconic symbol.

“I kind of set myself up for the entire bronc riding with the bluffs in the background,” Magill said. “I always like it to look like an old-time watercolor, almost like what you’d see on a dime novel back in the old West.”

Magill takes his photos inside the outdoor arena, so he can get the best shots, one that puts the viewer right where the action is.

Getting The Money Shot

The backdrop is one of the few factors Magill can control when it comes to photographing cowboys on a bucker.

“The horse is going to do what the horse is going to do,” Magill said. “This could have gone the other way or there’s 100 other things that could have happened.”

Everything happens in the mere blink of an eye. Bronc riding is furious, and it is fast — way faster than human reaction times.

“By the time your brain sees something and recognizes it and you push a button, it’s already gone,” Magill said.

So Magill uses a rig set to take multiple shots at the push of a single button.

Every time he pushes that button, he’s hoping one of the 25 in the set will be the one: A money shot that either looks just like Steamboat and the bucking horse logo or just a really good shot someone would want to put on their wall.

But he’s learned over the years never to let his hopes get too high, and to just focus on getting as many shots out of each ride as possible.

Still, when he saw Teyvian “Doc” Frye riding a big paint stallion named Medicine Feathers, he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit excited. That’s because Frye had taken off his hat and he was waving it around as he fought to stay on top of the horse.

“I don’t know if there was another cowboy who took his hat off during the ride other than Doc,” Magill said.

Later, looking through the photographs, Doc’s arm was off to one side in a lot of the shots.

But finally, there was one with his hand overhead.

And not just that. The horse’s body was arched with the hooves pointing in and the tail held high — just like the bucking horse logo.

“I don’t think the shot could be more perfect,” Magill said.

The Hurricane Horse

But it’s not just the image that’s perfect, Magill said. It’s all the circumstances surrounding the photograph too.

For one thing, Chugwater is where Steamboat was born 128 years ago in 1896. Magill believes the horse was probably foaled a mile or so away from the arena where the Chugwater Roundup was held.

Steamboat was born on the Frank Foss ranch in 1896. He roamed the range wild and free until 1899, when the Swan Land and Cattle Company bought the jet black colt for its Two Bar Ranch.

They let him run another year before bringing him in for castration. The angry stallion threw his head down so hard during that it broke his nose. The cowboy who was there when the injury occurred, Jimmy Danks, thought the horse sounded like a steamboat afterward, when he was ridden. So that’s what Danks named him.

Danks would soon learn that Steamboat was a bucker, and one who grew craftier as time went by.

Eventually, the horse was purchased by C.B. Irwin for rodeo stock and fought his way to the top echelon of all rodeo horses everywhere, earning the title Worst Bucking Horse in the World in 1907 and 1908.

Newspapers at the turn of the 20th century described Steamboat as half hurricane and half horse. Few cowboys could outlast his unique bucking style in those days when there was no 8-second rule. Cowboys rode their horses to a complete standstill, or until they were thrown.

Steamboat would kick his front feet one way and his back legs another, all the while twisting his body around in the air. A cowboy might think he had it all in hand until, that is, Steamboat suddenly stopped, landing with board-stiff legs. Think of it like a jackhammer to the backside. Few cowboys could hold on after that.

The few who did make it past the dead-still drop often relaxed, thinking Steamboat was now standing still. But the horse wasn’t done quite yet. He’d just taken a breather for the next go-round.

That never-quit style and stamina made Steamboat the enduring Wyoming icon that he is today.

The Legend Of The Lazy 20

The bluffs where Chugwater’s rodeo is held are largely unchanged from what Steamboat would have beheld as a young horse on the range.

But here’s a connection that Magill knew nothing about before taking the photo.

The owner of Medicine Feathers, the horse in Magill’s iconic lookalike shot, is owned by Rand Selle, who also happens to own the brand that historians say would have marked Steamboat after he was born.

That brand is the Lazy 20, a numeral 20 lying on its side.

“That brand was first registered in 1921 with the Wyoming livestock board,” Magill said. “But Frank had been using it before that. The board itself didn’t exist until 1919.”

The brand has since been handed down through the generations, to people who will be good stewards of the brand, honoring and preserving the iconic history that goes with it.

Magill said Selle is thinking about branding Medicine Feathers with the Lazy 20, as he’s done with a lot of his colts.

Another connection is that the Chugwater Roundup contestants included lots of cowboys whose real-life day job is breaking colts.

“This is what they do for a living,” Magill said. “And over the weekends they go rodeo to try to make some money that way.”

That’s very similar to who was riding Steamboat in the day when he was known as the world’s worst bucker. His riders were all real cowboys, who made a living working on the range, and who did rodeo to make a little extra money, as well as test their skills against their peers.

With so many significant things coming together in one photo, there’s no doubt in McGill’s mind that the photo was divinely inspired to help carry on the legacy and spirit of Steamboat.

“I think the picture was taken at 1/1250 of a second, so for it to be that iconic, I mean the time just had to be there. And I don’t think things like that just happen.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.

Portable monitors are becoming very common, especially because many more creative professionals adapt an on-the-go lifestyle. However, this feature-packed monitor might be perfect for photographers and other digital visual creatives.

Portable monitors are helpful in many ways, not just to photographers but to anyone who uses tablets and laptops for productivity. Carrying around an extra screen can allow you to do more things at once and improve the ergonomics of handling multiple apps and/or files while working. There’s a very long list of portable monitors available in the market that come in many different shapes and sizes, however not all of them offer top-notch resolution, color accuracy, and functionality in just one device. The ASUS ProArt PA169CDV combines the top-tier functionalities of two very helpful tools for photographers and digital artists.

The ProArt PA169CDV

The PA169CDV is a 15.6” IPS panel with a 16:9 aspect ratio housed in a thin bezel and encased in a slim, glossy surface with an anti-reflective and moisture-resistant coating. This has a functional screen size of 13.6 x 7.7 inches (345.6 x 194.4mm) with a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 (4K) at a refresh rate of 60Hz. This 15.6” 4K screen has a peak brightness of 400 nits however, running at such brightness requires the use of the supplied power adapter. When powered by USB-C from the computer, it can only go up to 180 nits.

As far as portable monitors are concerned, the above-mentioned specifications are pretty common. However, one of the things that make this portable monitor stand out is that it is capable of displaying 10-bit colors with 100% of the SRGB and Rec709 color spaces. It has a maximum contrast ratio of 1200:1 and is VESA-certified DisplayHDR400. The PA169CDV is both Calman-verified and Pantone-validated and comes with an individual panel color accuracy factory report that shows the specific peak color accuracy rating when properly calibrated.

These monitors generally have a standard of Delta E <2 but can achieve even better accuracy depending on lighting conditions and individual calibration in the actual lighting environment where they are to be used. The specific one tested for this article had a maximum rating of 0.53, which is way better than what the specifications say.

More Than Just a Display

In addition to being a slim monitor that works with just a single USB-C cable and can be significantly color accurate if properly calibrated before use, the ProArt PA169CDV also functions as a 15.6-inch pen display. Equipped with Wacom’s EMR tech, this portable monitor works with a battery-free pen with 4096 different pressure levels and comfortable working angles of up to 40 degrees to any side. This pen also comes with a customizable button, a customizable digital eraser on the distal end, and replaceable tips.

The 13.6 x 7.7 inches of the display is also the same functional area for use with the pen or as a touch screen. Typically, screens that are both touch and pen-compatible tend to be glitchy. However, in my experience, the detection of the pen swiftly triggers palm/touch rejection to ensure that no unintended inputs are made, especially when drawing or retouching.

To complement the functions of the pen display, on the left side of the panel is a modified version of the ProArt dial that was first introduced in the ProArt Studiobook laptops a couple of years back. This customizable dial allows you to switch through pre-selected functions such as exposure, contrast, saturation, brush size, opacity, and any available function on a wide range of apps that have linear adjustments. While the dial has a huge ergonomic impact since everything is within reach on and around the display, there are no programmable buttons or hotkeys that could exponentially make it easier to switch between tools in Photoshop and other applications.

Control Panel Functions

As a functional secondary touch display, pretty much like how the secondary screens on ASUS’ laptops are, the PA169CDV is also compatible with the ASUS control panel, which is a customizable virtual editing console that is compatible with select applications, mainly those within the Adobe ecosystem. This turns the screen into a panel with knobs and dials assigned to certain functions depending on the app being used. For example, for Adobe Lightroom, each of the dials can be assigned for the sliders on the develop module, which gives a unique and potentially more efficient user experience.

Application

With all the features and capabilities factored in, the PA169CDV can do a lot of what photographers and other related creative fields might require on the go. It can go from as simple as extending a desktop for better productivity, multi-tasking such as working on one screen while consuming content on the other, using it as a secondary monitor for shooting photos or video content, all the way to using it as a more intensive editing tool through the touch functions and as a pen display.

Dozens of manufacturers have come out with various portable display options that come in different shapes and sizes. However, not many of them offer the resolution and color performance of monitors from the ProArt line. At the same time, brands like Wacom, Huion, and Xencelabs make very capable pen tablets and pen displays but what makes this particular one stand out is having all of the functions and the top-tier specifications along with the innovative features all in one device.

There are definitely a number of ways this can be made even better, such as by adding hotkeys or a separate editing shortcut panel. Costs aside, it would also be great to have an OLED variant with an even wider color gamut, brighter output, and even higher contrast. In addition, it might also be beneficial for this to have either a built-in battery or a detachable portable power source that would keep it portable and balanced even when being used in situations outside of the typical editing desk.

Those improvement points aside, this color-accurate portable monitor and pen display already is a remarkable product that combines the functionalities of tools that many digital visual creatives use separately.

What I Liked:

• Portable 4K display with good color capabilities
• 10-point touch
• Seamless use with battery-free pen

What Can Be Improved:

• Programmable buttons on the side
• Built-in battery or portable power source