Going to see ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ today. Vivian Maier was a nanny who took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and, discovered decades later and is now among the 20th century’s greatest street photographs.
Her body of work came to light in 2007 when it was discovered at a local thrift auction house on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
I’ll report back later…….
Later…..
Vivian Maier was born in New York but spent most of her youth in France. She came back to New York to work as a nanny. Working as a nanny, her Rolleiflex was always round her neck and she would take the children to all sorts of places taking thousands of pictures in the process. She had an uncanny knack of getting very close to all sorts of subjects.
Her photo’s were bought at auction by John Maloof who was looking for some historic photos of Chicago. Since then he has spent the rest of his time piecing together her life; developing and printing thousands of rolls of film in the process. Maier also shot a lot of self portraits, cine film and recorded audio tapes so you could get an idea of what she was actually like. Interviews with the children (now grown up) were interesting. There were very mixed memories of this very private lady who seemed to have a darker side.
A fascinating documentary about a very private person who probably would not have wanted all this attention. Well worth going to see.
Jeff Hurst Photography 