Zen 921: The secret photography of Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was a professional nanny and amateur 'street photographer' who obsessively documented American urban life through the second half of the 20th Century, but didn't tell anyone. A hoarder of everything from art books to her own photographs (of which there are somewhere in the region of 100,000), she was a peculiar mix. At once fiercely private and fearlessly outspoken, she clearly had a wonderful eye but didn't want anyone to see what she captured with it.

Her entire archive of pictures, movies, audio tapes and other ephemera was found crammed into a series of storage lockers and only surfaced in 2007 when the contents of one of those lockers was sold at auction. A chap called John Maloof seems to have dedicated himself to reconstructing that archive and now reckons he has about 90% back in one place.

I defy you not to spend a good part of the rest of the day flicking through the galleries. You didn't? Goddammit. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Vivian Maier website [LINK]

(This photo isn't remotely representative of her work, I just really liked the way the horse is a frenzy of activity, all four hooves off the ground, while the rider seems blissfully unaffected.)