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If not for fellow blogger and regular commenter UP41, I would never have known about Vivian Maier. Thank you, UP41, for sharing.

Vivian Dorothea Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American amateur street photographer, who was born in New York City, but grew up in France. After returning to the United States, she worked for approximately forty years as a nanny in Chicago, Illinois. During those years, she took more than 100,000 photographs, primarily of people and cityscapes in Chicago, although she traveled and photographed worldwide.

Her photographs remained unknown and mostly undeveloped until they were discovered by a local Chicago historian and collector, John Maloof, in 2007. Following Maier's death, her work began to receive critical acclaim. Her photographs have been exhibited in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Belgium, and have appeared in newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Italy, France, and other countries. A book of her photography entitled, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer, was published in 2011.

Many of the details of Maier's life are still being uncovered. Initial impressions about her life indicated that she was born in France,[3] but further researching revealed that she was born in New York City, the daughter of Maria Jaussaud and Charles Maier, French and Austrian respectively. Vivian moved between the U.S. and France several times during her childhood, living with her mother in the Alpine village of Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur near to her maternal relations. Her father seems to have left the family for unknown reasons by 1930. In the census that year, the head of the household was listed as award-winning portrait photographer Jeanne Bertrand, who knew the founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1951, at 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked for some time in a sweatshop. She made her way to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956 and became a nanny on and off for approximately 40 years, staying with one family for 14 of them. She was, in the accounts of the families for whom she worked, very private, spending her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, most often with a Rolleiflex camera.

CLICK THIS LINK to know more about this wonderful nanny turned photographer who has now become a legend.

CLICK THIS LINK to go to her official website and to enjoy her fantastic photography.

Thanks to UP41 for this link to a BBC video clip on Vivian Maier: CLICK HERE to view this fantastic MUST WATCH video that documents the life of an incredible artistic photographer who captured moments in life in a variety of situations. Some were snapshots but many of her works transcend the celluloid world to reveal so much more in such an intriguing manner because via her photography, she was trying to understand the world to which she belonged.