Vivian Maier was born on February 1, 1926 in New York City. Around the age of 25 or 26 she started taking photographs, about 100,000 or more pictures by the time she died on April 21, 2009, ninety-nine percent of which she never showed anyone. She worked as a Nanny and/or Housekeeper most of her life using her spare time to photograph in New York City, Chicago, a village in France, and on an eight-month world tour accompanied by her trusted twin-lens Rollie camera hanging from her neck. Her work was discovered two years before she died but she was unaware of it. It included documentary style photography, 8mm film and audio recordings.
Two years before she died, on April 21, 2009 in Chicago, storage lockers where she stored her work and other things were sold at auction for non-payment of the monthly fees. John Maloof bought boxes of negatives and went on to buy more boxes of negatives, undeveloped rolls of film, 8mm and 16mm movie film from other bidders later on. He discovered the inspired work of Vivian Maier and ultimately brought her photography to public attention.
There are currently two documentary films about Vivian Maier. 1) The Vivian Maier Mystery, fifty-three minutes, released in 2013 by BBC.
2) Oscar Nominated, Finding Vivian Maier, 84 minutes, released in 2013/14 by Sundance Selects, directed by John Maoof and Charlie Siskel.
Go to JRMartinMedia for entire article and to view trailer for Finding Vivian Maier.
Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.