Ann’s lengthy and often arduous research has revealed a turbulent background and a complicated family story for Vivian Maier. She had several issues that remained in her entire life. The difficulties of locating the information were many and varied, as Ann says: “They’d employed a genealogist but discovered the bare minimum. It’s a lot of work, and you need to be someone who can complete this task for free. One of the difficulties was that the family of Vivian was extremely secretive, and as a result, they altered the majority of their records.
“When you’re starting, you’re not aware that when you discover two things that aren’t compatible, that it’s because they’re acting on the basis of. When I realized that it was much easier to discover the truth and sort it out. My first goal was to track down Vivian’s brother as, at the time, they were trying to discover the descendants. There was no record of him before 1942. I believed he was the key to unlocking the other records of the family and that he was.’
The interest was so great in Maier, especially in her hometown of Chicago, which led to the shocking discovery of her brother’s archives, resulting in Ann in the top spot of the Chicago Tribune. Ann was then contacted via John Maloof, the owner of the majority archive of the Vivian Maier archive. She granted unprecedented access to its archives to compile as comprehensive a biography as possible.
The streets of Manhattan produced amazing results for Maier.
Through the publication, we learn that, although it’s Chicago in which the majority of Maier’s attention is focused, ill, it was New York where it seems she attempted – but ultimately failed to pursue photography beyond it was a pastime. The nanny job provided her with the time and the freedom to record life in the streets of late-century New York in a way that is now acknowledged as being among the best work from the era.
It was here at the age of 26 that she bought the Rolleiflex as proof of her seriousness, as it was the primary camera used by professionals.
Maier did not receive any formal education in photography. However, her efforts to join the photography community were pursued seriously in the years leading up to 1955, when she lived in a city. Her spare time was spent looking at other photographers, tracking celebrities in the style of a paparazzo, and even posing for portraits.
In the past, she attempted to start an online business selling postcards. She wasn’t insecure or uneasy about her skills – employers appeared to know her talents very well. They were able to commission her (likely without pay) to help cover important family events.
Maier’s expertise is what has given her her wide-ranging appeal to the masses, even today, alongside her sincerity and her innovative method of dealing with her subject. Ann states, “You look at things that evoke emotions. In this case, for instance, at the moment, there was no one snapping pictures of children in their natural states crying or shouting.
