In 2007, A local historian and real estate agent John Maloof, wanted to write a book on north west Chicago neighborhood. While doing the research he stumbled up on a local auction sale where he bought an old storage unit for 400$ which contained negatives, which he believed would contain photographs of some historical architecture of Chicago and its suburbs. After inspecting them, he was very much disappointed because he couldn't find any architectural photographs. This was just the Beginning…
2 years later…
Curiosity pushed John to inspect the rest of the negatives in the storage unit. When he started exploring, he was shocked to see one of the most remarkable works in the field of street photography. He found out more than 1, 00,000 street photographs depicting the Lifestyle and culture of Chicago and New York between 1950 - 1960. He published his discovery on the web and he received comments that made him realize this is a remarkable piece of work that should be revealed to the eyes of public.
When he tried to find out the name of the photographer, he found the name Vivian maier in one of the boxes. When he Googled about her, John found out the obituary column telling that vivian maier , 83 she was dead three days before.
Vivian maier was born in the year 1926 was born in New York and grew up in France. She moved back to Chicago after Second World War and worked as a nanny. During her offs and free time maier used to step out into the streets of Chicago and photograph the happenings with her camera. Even though she photographed many places of the world, most of her work features the life in Chicago and New York from 1950's to 1960's.
Towards the end of her life, Maier may have been homeless for some time. She lived on Social Security and may have had another source of income, but the children she had taken care of in the early 1950s bought her an apartment and paid her bills. In 2008, she slipped on ice and hit her head. She did not fully recover and died in 2009 at the age of 83.
This story is another example which tells us that passion towards something we love will never let us down even if are long gone in the sands of time. The life and work of Vivian maier should live in the hearts of every passionate photographer.
Official Vivian maier website: http://www.vivianmaier.com/
Article : Karthik Pasupathy
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