Anonymous In Life, Famous In Death: The Amazing Images Of Vivian Maier

In a dark and damp storage unit in New York City, boxes of undeveloped images sat waiting to be found for over a decade. The contents of the unit were being prepared to be auctioned off; It was the only thing the storage company could do since the owner of the unit had long since died and there was no next of kin to claim the property. Hundreds of thousands of negatives, slides, photos and home movie reels were lined up and the public was invited to bid on the unseen contents of the boxes.

Photo:vivianmaier

Enter photographer John Maloof. Maloof was rummaging through one of the units and came across one of a dozen boxes that held undeveloped images and slides. On a whim he spent $350 on one of the boxes, went home and discovered something that would change the direction of his life forever.

Undated, New York, NY

Photo:vivianmaier

Once Maloof started developing the images he found that he was looking at some of the greatest photographs he had ever seen. Images of street photography that were as good as anything in museums or documented in books were in his hands and he had no idea who the person was that took the photos. Perplexed at the identity of who the photographer might be, Maloof was so enamored by the images, he went back to the storage facility and immediately purchased the remaining boxes and asked to find out who else bought boxes from the auction so he could track them down. When he found them, he bought those too. Maloof knew he had discovered something very special.

Photo:vivianmaier

After digging through all the boxes he discovered mountains of information about the person who stashed away their lifes work. Apparently the mystery photographer was a packrat and saved every scrap of paper, every receipt, and every image SHE ever photographed. Her name was Vivian Maier and Maloof slowly discovered the incredible story about an unknown French nanny who took photographs as a hobby all while taking the kids she cared for on walks throughout the city.

Photo:vivianmaier

The tale of Vivian turned out to be a lonely one but one also one filled with interesting stories from the people that knew her and the kids that were under her supervision. Maloof was so inspired while researching her story, that he made a full length documentary of all his interviews and meetings, the results are a fascinating look at a person who the world all but forgot but is now achieving a level of notoriety that few modern photographers ever receive.

Self Portrait. Photo:vivianmaier

The story of the oddball nanny who has now known throughout the world because of her intimate and emotional photography is one of the great stories of the second half of the twentieth century. If not for Maloof stumbling across that storage locker in 2007, the world most likely would still have never heard of the amazing woman, Vivian Maier. His tenaciousness in tracking down the names of the people who knew the story of Vivian is one most people would not have followed through on. Lucky for us, Maloofs OCD was near that of the person he was trying to discover.