The career of the 88-year-old American photographer Jay Maisel has been blessed both by his individual talent, which is vast, and by some very good fortune. That latter component manifested itself most generously in the early 1960s, when Maisel bought a six-story, 36,000-square-foot former bank building in Manhattan’s SoHo, on the corner of Bowery and Spring.

As he recalls in “Jay Myself,” an energetic documentary directed by Stephen Wilkes (his former intern), he could not afford the building at the time. The $25,000 down payment was forbidding. But a magazine assignment fee turned out to be a per-page deal, not a flat rate, and the pages were many. Voilà, a down payment.

The space enabled Maisel to become a hoarder, albeit a hoarder of genius. Several overhead shots in the movie show a floor covered by transparencies of his work; the views are reminiscent of the final shots of “Citizen Kane” or “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Maisel also invented gizmos, collected objects of various attractive colors (there’s concern expressed in the movie over the ultimate fate of a group of blue bottles), and more. The structure was also where he lived, had a small family, and relaxed. One floor housed a basketball half-court. At its far end was a gallery of Maisel’s work, which covers as much under the sun as a single photographer can capture in a lifetime.