I knew she was talented but it's astonishing what she made of it. Who could have imaged she could have left so much behind? — Linda Matthews (image via Smithsonian) Vivian Maier worked for 40 years as a nanny in Chicago, with photography as her "hobby." She'd leave work and shoot street scenes, black-and-white images of shoppers, buildings and even self-portraits captured in windows and mirrors. She hoarded boxes of newspapers, notebooks and her negatives, banning her charges from stepping close to the room where she kept her camera. "It was like walking through a valley of newspapers," one child remembered. She died in 2009, alone and bankrupt, without ever having published her work or even shown her photographers to friends and family.
A Woman to Know: Vivian Maier
A Woman to Know: Vivian Maier
A Woman to Know: Vivian Maier
I knew she was talented but it's astonishing what she made of it. Who could have imaged she could have left so much behind? — Linda Matthews (image via Smithsonian) Vivian Maier worked for 40 years as a nanny in Chicago, with photography as her "hobby." She'd leave work and shoot street scenes, black-and-white images of shoppers, buildings and even self-portraits captured in windows and mirrors. She hoarded boxes of newspapers, notebooks and her negatives, banning her charges from stepping close to the room where she kept her camera. "It was like walking through a valley of newspapers," one child remembered. She died in 2009, alone and bankrupt, without ever having published her work or even shown her photographers to friends and family.