I first came across the work of Laird Scott on Flickr five years ago when I was researching the history of the Ansco Panda box camera. What I found then was a Flickr album entitled
Christmas 1947. The album contained the pictures made by Laird as a child in Chicago from the first roll of film made with his first camera. He was clearly a photo prodigy and I thought his pictures were astounding, both technically and artistically.
In the ensuing five years Laird has filled many more Flickr albums with new scans from his trove of negatives from a life-long career in photography. His most recent project is the creation of an album of photographs made in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Chicago; it is entitled
Chicago Mix II: 1959 - 1962. In this work in progress my own favorites so far are
Lipstick Touch-Up - Lincoln Park Zoo - Chicago IL - 1959 and
Mamiyaflex C2 meets Mamiyaflex C2 on State St. Bridge - Chicago '59.
So, Laird Scott was shooting on Chicago streets at the same time as Vivian Maier, and it seems to me his work is just as compelling as hers. Furthermore, what you can see in the bus window selfie is that he was shooting with virtually the same big, ungainly tlr photo gear that Diane Arbus would later adopt. Laird's style and choice of subjects is closer to Maier than to Arbus, but he also shows a lot of the same intense engagement that characterized Arbus' work. Unlike those two contemporary artists, Scott also used his cameras to document the details of his own life including his interests in car racing, music and musicians, his travels and work in Africa, and the life of his big, close family. It is a photo collection unique in its scope and intimacy.