A NANNY WITH A CAMERA
In 2007, John Maloof, a young real estate agent*, walked into an auction house in search of materials for a book. He wanted to write about one of the districts of Chicago. He ended up buying some boxes of photos. After unpacking them at home, John discovered a fewthousand pictures – in perfect condition and chronologically sorted. Many of them dated back to the 1950s–1980s. When Maloof realized they were not of value for his book, he put the boxes into a cupboard, and got on with his writing.
After his book was published, John thought again about the photos. He started looking through the collection and became fascinated by the photos and the person who had taken them. The photographer’s name, Vivian Maier, was easy to find as it was on the photo lab receipts and envelopes, which were also in the boxes. At the time Maier was completely unknown in the photographic world, despite the brilliance of her work. Maloof decided to contact her. It turned out that she was then 83 years old and was living in a retirement home. When he called to speak with her, he was informed that she was unavailable, and when he called again, he was told that she had died. Now there was nothing else John could do but study the contents of the boxes and find out everything he could about Vivian Maier. He was finally able to discover that she had worked as a nanny for much of her life and shot images of the street life of New York and Chicago in her free time.
Born in New York in 1926, Maier spent her childhood and teenage years in France, with regular visits to America with her mother. It was in France that Vivian took her first pictures with an amateur Kodak camera that was heavy and difficult to use, and which had belonged to her mother. At the age of 25, she returned to the USA and settled in New York, where she got a job as a nanny with a rich family. Maier spent every free moment in the streets of New York, taking pictures of life around her, but using a much better camera – a Rolleiflex. In 1956, Maier moved to Chicago, where she spent the rest of her life working as a nanny and doing her photography along the way. She didn’t have any children of her own. In her photos, she managed to show interesting and unusual details of the daily routine of the cities. Many of her photos are now considered to be masterpieces of street photography. Sadly, during her lifetime, her talent was not recognized.
Na podstawie: birdinflight.com
* Real estate agent – agent nieruchomości
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