Vivian Maier, a Street Photographer.

 Vivian Maier (New York 1926 - Chicago 2009) comes from a family of jews refugees. She was born in New York City but moved to France, where she spent most of her youth.

When she was four years old she was abandoned by her father and lived with her mother for some time with the surrealistic photographer Jeanne J. Bertrand and that fact could be a turning point in her life that boosted her passion towards photography. In 1951 she returned to the United States and worked as a nanny and care-giver. She first lived in New York and later on, in 1956, she moved to Chicago, where she would spend most of her life.

She always carried her camera with her in the long walks with the children she looked after. She left more than 100,000 negatives of photographs together with undeveloped rolls of film and audio tapes, all of which had been kept on a storage locker until she could not afford to go on paying for it and the content was bought at an auction by John Maloof who, at the time, was searching for information to write a History book on Chicago NW side.

When he started to develop part of the material he realized that what he had in his hands was very valuable. Maier's main interest focused on street portraits which reflected different social classes and the dramatic living conditions and suffering of some people. Many of the photographs were taken at chest level. As people stared at Maier holding her camera she would take the chance to take the shot she pursued. People from high classes were reluctant to be photographed and their susrprise, and some times anger, is usually reflected in the portraits. However, when taking photos of people from the lower classes, their attitude was pretty different, they didn't show annoyance and at times willingly posed for the photograph.

Looking at Maier's photos leaves the viewer with a mixture of strange feelings and thoughts. Maloof decided to continue his investigation on Vivian's life her photos and the rest of the material she left, which finally saw the light in 2007. Her work has meant a renewed interest in the art of Street Photography.

One of the tapes contained Maier's idea of the passsing through life:

"Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It´s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on"

There is an exhibition of her photography at Fundación Canal (Madrid). It can be visited till August 16th. Free entrance.

You can´t miss it.

Angelines.