Friday 14 January 2011

Vivian Maier - the discovery of a wonderful street photographer

I just came across the amazing story of Vivian Maier - nanny and extraordinary amateur street photographer.
In 2007 a Chicago estate agent, John Maloof, went to a furniture and antiques  auction and bought some boxes full of old photos, negatives and rolls of film. This sparked in him an interest in photography and the more he studied it the more he realised how good these photos were. He  managed to buy the rest of the boxes that were at the auction and now has over 100,000 images.
He did some research to find out who the mystery photographer was and found it was a French nanny who lived in Chicago and New York in the fifties and sixties.
Her photos are great. You can see some and read her story on the blog/website at
vivianmaier.com . Watch the Chicago Tonight video you will find there
Other interesting sites/articles:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/little-miss-big-shot-fifties-america-exposed-ndash-by-a-french-nanny-1811040.html (click on the 'more photos' link under the photo for a slideshow)

http://www.kitchensisters.org/girlstories/the-lost-found-photographs-of-vivian-maier/

A feature length documentary 'Finding Vivian Maier' is planned for 2012 more info at Kickstarter

No comments: