0:00:20 > 0:00:23One of the most intriguing photographers of the 20th century
0:00:23 > 0:00:25took her first known pictures here.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38Her photos weren't seen in her lifetime.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40Most she didn't even print,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43but saw just once in her viewfinder as she took them.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49It was 3,000 miles away in America
0:00:49 > 0:00:52that Vivian Maier spent her life.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56She worked as a nanny
0:00:56 > 0:00:58and every day she took pictures -
0:00:58 > 0:01:01150,000 of them.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06She was a poet of suburbia.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08A secret street photographer,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11before the term was really invented.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18The shadows of the America of her time
0:01:18 > 0:01:20fall across Vivian Maier's photographs.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Just before she died, four years ago,
0:01:27 > 0:01:29her life's work was discovered by accident
0:01:29 > 0:01:31in storage lockers in Chicago.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36It proved a treasure trove for the finders.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39People found it hard to believe
0:01:39 > 0:01:42that Mary Poppins with a camera could have taken these pictures.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47It's a classic parable of the artist, unsung in life.
0:01:51 > 0:01:52Van Gogh once said,
0:01:52 > 0:01:54"Stars are the souls of dead poets,
0:01:54 > 0:01:58"but to become a star, you have to die."
0:02:25 > 0:02:28I was the manager of a movie theatre here in Chicago.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33I noticed her, cos she was kind of an odd bird and er...
0:02:33 > 0:02:37she came probably three or four times a month
0:02:37 > 0:02:44for 13 years and she was also the type of person
0:02:44 > 0:02:48I think you could potentially wonder if she was a little crazy.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51I did notice her camera,
0:02:51 > 0:02:56but with her vintage clothing, I just thought it was part of the costume.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02The rest of my staff at the theatre thought she was mean.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04They would say, "Oh, I don't want to deal with her.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06"Jim, can you go talk to her?"
0:03:06 > 0:03:10I never saw her come with anybody and I never saw her talk to anybody.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17After the films, she would be leaving at 11 or midnight
0:03:17 > 0:03:18and I would wonder where she would go.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24Didn't seem homeless, but she seemed close.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33She loved seeing a Buster Keaton film with children in the room.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36They would be laughing and the piano would be playing
0:03:36 > 0:03:38and it was just a really magical moment.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47Did you know she was a nanny?
0:03:47 > 0:03:49No idea.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54To be honest with you, I was a little afraid to...
0:03:54 > 0:03:55try to know too much about her.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01Now, I sort of regret not prying a little bit
0:04:01 > 0:04:03and finding out about her life,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05it seems so interesting in retrospect.
0:04:07 > 0:04:13And I was just a little bit afraid to get deep with this woman, you know.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41This is Inger Raymond,
0:04:41 > 0:04:43one of Vivian Maier's charges.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46Vivian took hundreds of photographs of Inger,
0:04:46 > 0:04:48almost all of which she's never seen before.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52Many were taken on this beach.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55If Miss Maier was out here,
0:04:55 > 0:04:58she would wait until one of the kids was crawling
0:04:58 > 0:05:01right between that little ice cave hole.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07That was where she would take a picture.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21- When the printer was printing this... - Mmm.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25..he didn't realise someone was hiding inside of the cupboard.
0:05:25 > 0:05:26Really? Oh, my God!
0:05:26 > 0:05:29All of a sudden, he saw this, this eyeball.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32It makes a very eerie look,
0:05:32 > 0:05:35but I know what it is, it's one of those large sewer pipes.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42I love that image because it is so dramatic, it's stark,
0:05:42 > 0:05:46it's er...film noir, almost.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48If you look at it closely,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51there is a cross right on the face,
0:05:51 > 0:05:57right on my face, and it's this almost caged-animal look with cross.
0:05:57 > 0:05:59It's very interesting.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04When she took her photos, she would be completely and utterly focused.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08I mean, it was just, you know, instant, you know, absolute,
0:06:08 > 0:06:10erm...concentration...
0:06:12 > 0:06:13..that it would be done.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25I think even if she was here,
0:06:25 > 0:06:27she couldn't explain her photography to us
0:06:27 > 0:06:29because she didn't like talking about her photography
0:06:29 > 0:06:31and most of the people who knew her,
0:06:31 > 0:06:33and there are very few people who knew her,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35she never talked about her photography.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45So everything that we can learn about her is going to come from pictures,
0:06:45 > 0:06:47because they show us what she liked,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49what she disliked, what she was drawn to.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51We really are just left with the images.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Vivian Maier used to haunt this market
0:06:58 > 0:07:02with a movie camera as well as her stills camera.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28"Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop, die knowing something,
0:07:28 > 0:07:29"you're not here long."
0:07:52 > 0:07:55The flea market is a shadow of its former self,
0:07:55 > 0:07:59but still the happy hunting ground of pickers, treasure hunters.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09And pickers love old photos and postcards.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13Oh, man, you get the trucker photos, I get the racing photos.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Vivian Maier's work was brought to light
0:08:16 > 0:08:19by people just like those she used to photograph.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21- What do you think? - I just got here this morning.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26Ron Slattery was the first to buy Vivian's work at auction in 2007.
0:08:27 > 0:08:28The Chicago stuff's great.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30Postcards?
0:08:30 > 0:08:32Yeah, these are old postcards.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Roger Gunderson was the auctioneer who sold it to him.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39Oh, there you go. That's nice.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41There's Lake Street with the...
0:08:43 > 0:08:44That's pretty cool, isn't it?
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Vivian Maier had no home of her own,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55so she kept her life's work in storage lockers.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58But in her old age, she was no longer able to pay the rent,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01so the contents of the lockers were sold.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04What would she have paid
0:09:04 > 0:09:06to keep that stuff in storage over the years?
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Thousands of dollars, I would imagine.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Is, isn't that sort of tragic, in a way,
0:09:14 > 0:09:18that she puts all her life's work into storage
0:09:18 > 0:09:21and she's paying out these huge sums of money for it
0:09:21 > 0:09:24- and then she loses it all? - And, and it all goes away, yeah.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29When her lockers were put up for sale,
0:09:29 > 0:09:31half a dozen dealers turned up.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38All they saw were old suitcases and boxes.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43They'd open the door and you'd bid from the doorway, you'd look,
0:09:43 > 0:09:47you couldn't touch, what you see is what you get.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49And it was always a big gamble.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52You might end up with something worth nothing
0:09:52 > 0:09:54or you might end up with something worth millions,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57- which, as it happens... - It happens.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04Roger bought five lockers full of Vivian Maier's stuff.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06It filled one and a half trucks,
0:10:06 > 0:10:08unloaded here in this auction room.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14'Had I known that this thing was going to get as big as it had,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17'I would have saved every crumb of paper I had.'
0:10:17 > 0:10:20And these are the trucks that you put all Vivian's stuff in?
0:10:20 > 0:10:21Yes, this one right here.
0:10:21 > 0:10:26'But we threw some away, personal writings and things like that,
0:10:26 > 0:10:29'some of that stuff that, hindsight being 20/20, had we known, we would have kept it.'
0:10:32 > 0:10:36But we, we sold it, we turned it, we made money - deal.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44The Vivian Maier phenomenon had begun.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53Now, New York galleries sell new prints, often made from negatives
0:10:53 > 0:10:57that Vivian never even developed, for upwards of 2,000.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04Vintage prints made in Vivian's lifetime go for 8,000.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09It's a complete accident that the world has stumbled on her work.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12It could very easily have been destroyed without anyone knowing about it.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18Vivian Maier, unlike any other photographer I can think of,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21made her work entirely for herself.
0:11:21 > 0:11:27She had no audience, she knew no other photographers,
0:11:27 > 0:11:33she didn't really print her work, except in the most rudimentary form.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36She didn't exhibit her work or publish her work.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41It was a project entirely self-motivated,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44entirely self-fulfilling
0:11:44 > 0:11:48and this creates a certain freedom, a certain independence.
0:11:48 > 0:11:50It's her own personal voice.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56Vivian Maier worked in a variety of genres -
0:11:56 > 0:11:58she took street photography,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01wandering around the streets of Chicago and New York,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04indigene people on the street, because they're on the street
0:12:04 > 0:12:07and just marvellously expressive moment.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13She does wonderful portraits
0:12:13 > 0:12:15that are of distinctive characters
0:12:15 > 0:12:18that she is able to capture in a moment,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20everything is moving very, very fast.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22She would definitely be very close
0:12:22 > 0:12:26in order to capture the way his hair is stuck to his forehead
0:12:26 > 0:12:28and this anxious expression.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36She's very much like a poet
0:12:36 > 0:12:40who's trying to just observe very carefully,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43for personal reasons - to look at the world
0:12:43 > 0:12:47and locate what's important to her,
0:12:47 > 0:12:48what interests her,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50capture it in a photograph.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55It's exceedingly personal.
0:13:02 > 0:13:04There is humour in her work.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11This is a picture of one of the children
0:13:11 > 0:13:13that Vivian Maier took care of.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19She photographed while she was working, moonlighting on the job.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24Some of those remain in the...realm of snapshots.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29But many of them transcend that genre
0:13:29 > 0:13:34and become more observations about children, about family,
0:13:34 > 0:13:35about the suburbs...
0:13:38 > 0:13:40Youth confronting age.
0:13:43 > 0:13:48Who's going to have the time and the space to be in somebody's backyard,
0:13:48 > 0:13:50taking that kind of picture?
0:13:50 > 0:13:53A nanny would, you know, who's also a great photographer.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00I mean, all her self-portraits intrigue me, cos er...
0:14:01 > 0:14:05..you know, they're her and she intrigues me.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07She was interested in seeing
0:14:07 > 0:14:09how she fit into the world.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15We believe that she never fully realised her work,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18so we are helping her to realise it,
0:14:18 > 0:14:22by printing it in a certain way, by editing it in a certain way,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25picking the pictures that have meaning to us,
0:14:25 > 0:14:29erm... You know, it's, it is what it is.
0:14:29 > 0:14:30It's a very unique case.
0:14:34 > 0:14:39Ron Slattery owns about 2,000 of Vivian's prints and negatives,
0:14:39 > 0:14:41which he is NOT selling.
0:14:45 > 0:14:46Let's start with this one.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49'Would you tell us what you paid for them?'
0:14:49 > 0:14:51250.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54And away we go.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57- 'For how many photographs? - 'My whole collection.'
0:14:57 > 0:15:00For the same sum, the auctioneer got all five lockers.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02'Did you make a lot of money out of it?'
0:15:02 > 0:15:04Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08Do you wish on some days, when you wake up in the morning,
0:15:08 > 0:15:10that you'd actually kept it all?
0:15:10 > 0:15:12Well, hindsight being 20/20, sure.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14That's one of my favourites.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17'But when we first started selling this, nobody knew,'
0:15:17 > 0:15:19even the people buying I don't think knew.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21Did you see the photos before you bought them?
0:15:21 > 0:15:24Nah, I just kind of looked it was like, "Oh, neato - photos," and bought them.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28'At the time, I was buying so many photographs.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32'That is, putting them into boxes and putting them into storage,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35'much the same way Vivian did.'
0:15:35 > 0:15:37That's Vivian Maier.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39A very unique self-portrait.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50Vivian never saw anything like the beautiful large prints
0:15:50 > 0:15:52that are being made today.
0:15:52 > 0:15:56When she saw prints at all, they were usually small ones like these,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00supplied by the drugstore or made by her in her lodgings.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Ron's collection would be dwarfed by others.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08There was a gentleman named Randy who bought some.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12One man, John Maloof, left an absentee bid on a box of negatives,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14just a little bit of everybody,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17so that's kind of where her work kind of went "Whoop!"
0:16:17 > 0:16:19When I went through some boxes in 2008,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22I pulled out the slides and went, "Wow, these are cool,"
0:16:22 > 0:16:24posted some on my website.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41John starts making prints from Vivian's negatives
0:16:41 > 0:16:43and selling them on eBay.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49Alan Secular, who's an art professor in California,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52contacted John and said, "This is very important."
0:16:52 > 0:16:56At this point was where he went, "Ding! OK."
0:16:56 > 0:16:59He started collecting as much of the work as he could.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03So Vivian's pictures were starting to appear online,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06but who was making the selection?
0:17:06 > 0:17:07It worries some people.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16I'll be the first to honour the quality of the work,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19but, at the same time, I'm concerned,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22because we're only seeing pictures
0:17:22 > 0:17:28that the people who bought the suitcases decided to edit
0:17:28 > 0:17:32and, and what kind of editors are they?
0:17:32 > 0:17:35What would she have edited out of this work
0:17:35 > 0:17:38and what would she have printed?
0:17:38 > 0:17:44How do any of us know who the real Vivian Maier is?
0:17:45 > 0:17:47So you were telling the world about Vivian -
0:17:47 > 0:17:49did you ever think to seek out Vivian yourself?
0:17:49 > 0:17:51John and I both googled up Vivian.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55And we're searching for her, we could find no information.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00The first thing that popped up was her obituary after she passed away.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08John Maloof now owns the lion's share of Vivian's work.
0:18:08 > 0:18:13He declined to take part in this film, because he's making his own.
0:18:17 > 0:18:23The second biggest owner is now Jeff Goldstein, an artist and carpenter.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25You've changed your entire life, Jeff -
0:18:25 > 0:18:27you've given up your vocation
0:18:27 > 0:18:30- and now you're just in the Vivian Maier business.- Right.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33And you're not the only one in this genre, of course,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36there's John Maloof. What does that make you feel?
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Well, we spend half of our time trying to push our projects forward
0:18:40 > 0:18:42and I think we spend the other half
0:18:42 > 0:18:45trying not to look like public assholes.
0:18:45 > 0:18:46We're under global scrutiny.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Her house is right around the corner up here.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56And this is a pretty tough neighbourhood to be.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59There was a fair amount of drug activity, a fair amount of crime takes place.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07So this was her, her last residence here.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09- That's the door?- Yeah.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Did she photograph a lot around this area?
0:19:16 > 0:19:18She did, along this stretch of Howard Street -
0:19:18 > 0:19:20there's a beautiful shot coming off the bridge,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24looking down in fact this way, the train tracks.
0:19:24 > 0:19:30She fell and hit her head actually right by those tracks.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32Really?
0:19:32 > 0:19:35And she was taken to a local hospital, resisted help
0:19:35 > 0:19:38and they thought she would recover,
0:19:38 > 0:19:40but, apparently, that was not the case.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56So during that period when the storage locker sales were happening,
0:19:56 > 0:20:00she was in hospital, recovering from this accident?
0:20:00 > 0:20:01That's my understanding.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Yeah, I really came into this about a year later,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10which, in some ways, is nice for me.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12How do you mean by that?
0:20:12 > 0:20:16She went into arrears, her lockers came up...
0:20:16 > 0:20:19I'm thankful to be one step removed from all of that.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31Jeff bought the bulk of his collection from Randy Prow,
0:20:31 > 0:20:33who'd bought it at Roger's auctions.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35When these transactions take place,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38it's not for the faint of heart,
0:20:38 > 0:20:40it's not a standard art acquisition.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43People are on their guard.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46How did you get hold of these pictures?
0:20:46 > 0:20:50I initially went down to where Randy Prow lives, in Southern Indiana,
0:20:50 > 0:20:53it's a good eight-hour drive from Chicago.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57And I brought along someone with me, a retired fireman, Chicago fireman,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00er...pretty burly, good-size guy
0:21:00 > 0:21:03and I met up with Randy, who I had never, hadn't met before,
0:21:03 > 0:21:07in an abandoned warehouse in a run-down section in this town.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09Randy had somebody with HIM for backup,
0:21:09 > 0:21:13so we both came into this being pretty leery of one another.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17Randy's guy was much bigger than my guy.
0:21:17 > 0:21:18- You carried the money with you? - Yeah.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23It looked like I had a vest with bricks attached to it,
0:21:23 > 0:21:27so like, the type they wear in the army for protection, I guess.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32Later, Randy was ready to sell even more of Vivian's work.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34More and more people were hearing about it,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37so the last purchase price was astronomical.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41It was something I couldn't handle alone,
0:21:41 > 0:21:43and so John Maloof and I got together
0:21:43 > 0:21:46to make the last purchase from Randy Prow.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57I went down with John and his friend Tony -
0:21:57 > 0:22:01I had my friend Rick, who was an off-duty Chicago cop.
0:22:01 > 0:22:07Rick comes armed, and Randy brought his brother, who came armed.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09There was a great deal of intensity in that room,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13cos you, you just don't know what may or may not happen.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17I was sweating some bullets in there.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19No pun intended.
0:22:25 > 0:22:27So who was this elusive woman
0:22:27 > 0:22:30who took these thousands of photographs...
0:22:32 > 0:22:36..often full of tenderness, like a parent's,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38but always from the outside?
0:22:42 > 0:22:44All these were taken in the '50s and '60s
0:22:44 > 0:22:48when she was working as a nanny in the suburbs north of Chicago.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54She worked in several houses,
0:22:54 > 0:22:56but for by far the longest time
0:22:56 > 0:22:59with a family called the Ginsbergs.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04Vivian's family,
0:23:04 > 0:23:10they were very much a hub of that neighbourhood
0:23:10 > 0:23:13and I think she probably enjoyed it...
0:23:15 > 0:23:22..enjoyed the erm...the energy that flowed from their family.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27It was a prosperous community,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30probably predominantly Jewish.
0:23:31 > 0:23:37It was really a neighbourhood in a very old-fashioned way.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44We ice-skated, we went to the beach.
0:23:47 > 0:23:48She rode a bicycle -
0:23:48 > 0:23:50we all rode bicycles, children,
0:23:50 > 0:23:52but...but grown-ups seldom did.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56And she always had her camera.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02I remember Vivian taking photographs of the kids
0:24:02 > 0:24:04as they were just lounging around
0:24:04 > 0:24:11and being surprised that there was no eye contact,
0:24:11 > 0:24:13she was just into her viewfinder.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18And...it was fascinating...
0:24:18 > 0:24:23to see somebody who was er...
0:24:23 > 0:24:26part of the group,
0:24:26 > 0:24:32but also had found a way to...to wall herself off from it.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38Her favourite camera helped with this.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42This is the same model as her first Rolleiflex, this opens...
0:24:42 > 0:24:45'Artist and lecturer Pamela Bannos showed us how.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50'She's been researching Vivian's life work and tools.'
0:24:50 > 0:24:52So we look through this viewfinder.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55You can see how difficult that is to see, to get accustomed to.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58- She looked straight down...- Yeah. - ..and out.
0:24:58 > 0:24:59So this is a twin-lens camera,
0:24:59 > 0:25:01you're actually looking through this upper lens
0:25:01 > 0:25:04and the photograph is being made through the lower lens.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06One thumb would turn this dial,
0:25:06 > 0:25:08the other thumb would turn this dial,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11we press that button and we've made the picture. Down in there to look...
0:25:11 > 0:25:13'To look down in a camera
0:25:13 > 0:25:16'means you're not making eye contact with people,'
0:25:16 > 0:25:20and for a woman photographer,
0:25:20 > 0:25:22it was a good disguise,
0:25:22 > 0:25:25because, to be out on the streets,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29you had to have the personality for it,
0:25:29 > 0:25:35but you also needed a tool that allowed you to stay invisible.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38And she looked like a schoolmarm,
0:25:38 > 0:25:40she looked innocent -
0:25:40 > 0:25:47it allowed her to get into the living space of lots of people.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55When I look back at all the pictures,
0:25:55 > 0:25:58she was clearly focusing in
0:25:58 > 0:26:02on the relationship of children and their parents.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Some of it was very sweet,
0:26:08 > 0:26:13but some of it was...I think maybe judgemental.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18It may also have been
0:26:18 > 0:26:23that she was noticing something about that community,
0:26:23 > 0:26:29some kind of...edginess and picking up on it.
0:26:31 > 0:26:39The camera presented this magical transition for her
0:26:39 > 0:26:44that allowed her to see people and to get places
0:26:44 > 0:26:47without being...caught doing it,
0:26:47 > 0:26:52and people allowed it because she wasn't there.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57She was just in the viewfinder.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04In order to live in someone else's family and care for their kids,
0:27:04 > 0:27:09you have to be both present and absent at the same time.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13And she knew how to achieve that kind of balance
0:27:13 > 0:27:15and she carried it out, it seems to me,
0:27:15 > 0:27:19in her work on the street too - she's definitely non-threatening.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29Her eye was so excellent for catching
0:27:29 > 0:27:35not just the character of the people she was photographing,
0:27:35 > 0:27:40but also the moment in history.
0:27:40 > 0:27:48She got Chicago in the '50s and early '60s in a very precise way,
0:27:48 > 0:27:54she got the things that...that made it that moment.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04There was always a degree of separation
0:28:04 > 0:28:07between Vivian and everyone else.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10She was clearly a recluse.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16The south here was er...my dad's dental office
0:28:16 > 0:28:22and upstairs was a room that Dad had given to Miss Maier to stay.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26She actually completely filled the room with newspapers
0:28:26 > 0:28:27and pictures and stuff,
0:28:27 > 0:28:31so much that my dad had to put a steel jack underneath
0:28:31 > 0:28:32to hold the floor up
0:28:32 > 0:28:34and he couldn't figure out why the ceiling was sagging.
0:28:37 > 0:28:38She did hoard things
0:28:38 > 0:28:41and she brought a lot of possessions into the house.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45Her bedroom, initially, was very simple
0:28:45 > 0:28:47and, in no short order,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50she ended up bringing in all her possessions -
0:28:50 > 0:28:56boxes, newspapers, er...lots of clothes,
0:28:56 > 0:28:58lots of different items,
0:28:58 > 0:29:06and it got to the point where this sparsely populated room was unbelievably crowded
0:29:06 > 0:29:10and, in fact, you had to almost narrow your way in
0:29:10 > 0:29:13on the occasions that she, you know, she'd let you in,
0:29:13 > 0:29:15because she was very, very private.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20It was really, really strange to see so many pictures of myself.
0:29:20 > 0:29:24I saw a few pictures when I was very little...
0:29:27 > 0:29:30..but after that, no, I mean, she, she kept them all to herself,
0:29:30 > 0:29:32so no, I had no clue.
0:29:35 > 0:29:40My mom was a photography editor for newspapers,
0:29:40 > 0:29:42she worked with a lot of photographers,
0:29:42 > 0:29:47but Miss Maier never, ever showed her any of the photos,
0:29:47 > 0:29:49so it was kind of unusual that way.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55I always called her Miss Maier
0:29:55 > 0:29:59and that was what she wanted me to call her,
0:29:59 > 0:30:02or my parents. Never Vivian,
0:30:02 > 0:30:07and she would take your head off if you used anything else.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12Sometimes she would hand her box camera to me
0:30:12 > 0:30:14and she wanted me to take a picture of herself.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16And I think you took that picture.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20Let's see, half her head cut off and... Yeah, that would be me.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22'She wanted that focus of that camera'
0:30:22 > 0:30:25just so. And she'd be frustrated
0:30:25 > 0:30:29because she didn't think I could get it to the point where she wanted it.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36She told me about the importance of the contrast between dark and light.
0:30:44 > 0:30:45When we'd go on our walks,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47she'd take me all over the place.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16After she got done the supper, she would leave,
0:31:16 > 0:31:19and she would walk to this train station
0:31:19 > 0:31:21headed towards Chicago area.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30That's all we knew. I never heard where she went.
0:31:30 > 0:31:32She never told anybody...
0:31:33 > 0:31:35..and she would be very angry if we asked.
0:31:45 > 0:31:47Whenever she could, Vivian would take the train
0:31:47 > 0:31:51from the northern suburbs, where she worked, to downtown Chicago.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14TRAIN TANNOY: Doors closing.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17The pictures that we're looking at were all taken
0:32:17 > 0:32:19within just a few blocks of here.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23The man sitting by an old subway station
0:32:23 > 0:32:27probably would have been taken right here. He was kind of panhandling.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33It was such a contrast to the life that she was leading in the suburbs.
0:32:33 > 0:32:34She was looking for people.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39The best way to capture the energy of a city
0:32:39 > 0:32:41and to understand the city is on the streets.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44She wasn't on a tour bus, she wasn't from afar,
0:32:44 > 0:32:46she was down at street level.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51Some of them aren't quite down and out, are they?
0:32:51 > 0:32:57Some of them are elderly people who are rather ornate in their own way.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00It's funny because, as you look at these different pictures,
0:33:00 > 0:33:02so many were taken on this corner.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05The Marshall Field's clocks were kind of a meeting place -
0:33:05 > 0:33:08people would say, "Meet me under the Marshall Field's clock."
0:33:16 > 0:33:19"The camera is an instrument of detection.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23"We photograph not only what we know, but also what we don't know."
0:33:43 > 0:33:46We're going on to the South Side to meet Sara Paretsky,
0:33:46 > 0:33:50a detective writer whose heroine also walked these mean streets.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56The danger that this area, wandering around here - I mean,
0:33:56 > 0:34:00how do you see that mystery woman side of Vivian?
0:34:00 > 0:34:04My sense of her was that she didn't think about it,
0:34:04 > 0:34:06that she was so focused on her quest
0:34:06 > 0:34:11that she didn't think about whether she was personally at risk.
0:34:14 > 0:34:20I think she had an intense interest in people who, in some ways,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23were like her, and were on the margins
0:34:23 > 0:34:26of the more glittery world
0:34:26 > 0:34:30that she worked for but wasn't part of.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32I think it can be reassuring
0:34:32 > 0:34:35to know that you're not alone
0:34:35 > 0:34:40in that kind of outsider world.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43And also, you know, she worked hard for a living
0:34:43 > 0:34:47and these are people who worked hard for a living.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50I also get a sense of...
0:34:50 > 0:34:55a kind of a loneliness or anomie that is, is really painful,
0:34:55 > 0:34:59and I wonder if she selected those shots
0:34:59 > 0:35:02out of her own sense of loneliness.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05She must have felt
0:35:05 > 0:35:07that there was something about her that was rootless,
0:35:07 > 0:35:10that wasn't weighted down, and that
0:35:10 > 0:35:13as many images as she could take somehow gave her weight.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19Photography can be kind of a lonely profession,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22and it's something that one actually
0:35:22 > 0:35:24has a lot of alone-time with.
0:35:28 > 0:35:30That's probably part of her success,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32she had a lot of alone-time.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36This is how she managed to do what she did.
0:35:41 > 0:35:47She actually was the personification of finding art.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50She walked into a picture, she saw it happening,
0:35:50 > 0:35:52she took a picture and she left.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Camera shop staff like Pat were among the few
0:35:58 > 0:36:01who ever got to see any of Vivian's pictures.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04She mostly showed me street scenes,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07sometimes some pretty bad neighbourhoods.
0:36:08 > 0:36:10This woman was going on foot.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14I'm also surprised that she just emerged unscathed.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16She would have been prey to someone
0:36:16 > 0:36:20who would have wanted the camera or something.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23I've been here since I was 14
0:36:23 > 0:36:25and I can remember her sort of coming in
0:36:25 > 0:36:30as early as that. And...it didn't matter the weather outside,
0:36:30 > 0:36:34but mainly, it was late in the afternoons.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39Yeah, she wore heavy er...shit-kicker shoes,
0:36:39 > 0:36:42long skirts, dark clothing, wintertime heavy coats,
0:36:42 > 0:36:43lots of scarves.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49She treated people as people and whether she liked people,
0:36:49 > 0:36:52that was another story that day or she didn't like people that day.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56And she did not like women who were trying to act like women.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02If you had make-up on, I think she basically would cut you off.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05Men - aggressive or too many questions.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08"Goodbye - could someone else take care of me?"
0:37:08 > 0:37:10I mean, she was right to the point.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15Sometimes, very rarely, she would open up the roll, to decide...
0:37:15 > 0:37:19She'd say, "Come here," and you know, "You can look at them with me."
0:37:19 > 0:37:22But not too often, mainly it was private.
0:37:25 > 0:37:30I don't honestly remember the pictures,
0:37:30 > 0:37:33just that it was black and white and it was people things.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44With a Rolleiflex, she had just 12 shots
0:37:44 > 0:37:46and then had to reload the film -
0:37:46 > 0:37:48not easy in the open air.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51She shot about a roll of film a day.
0:37:51 > 0:37:56She spent virtually all her earnings on film, equipment and storage.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01Unlike most photographers,
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Vivian tended to take just one shot and move on.
0:38:04 > 0:38:05Her hit rate was phenomenal.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13This is a roll of film, the order in which they were taken.
0:38:13 > 0:38:18It's kids getting on a bus in the morning for school.
0:38:18 > 0:38:19She drops them off,
0:38:19 > 0:38:23and then she heads downtown and she starts photographing.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26You really get this sense of a day in the life or of a diary here,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29and you can see how she moves through the street.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31If you put it all in a row
0:38:31 > 0:38:33you would see one woman's life
0:38:33 > 0:38:37unfolding on film in this way -
0:38:37 > 0:38:42you'd have an unbroken string of images of what she saw,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45of what her experiences were.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48This is what her big project was, it was her life.
0:38:51 > 0:38:53It was experiencing life through photography.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01She'll come upon somebody
0:39:01 > 0:39:05who seems to be either in crisis or contemplating something,
0:39:05 > 0:39:09people who seemed to be kind of lost in, in a world of deep thought...
0:39:12 > 0:39:14..and she was able to capture this image
0:39:14 > 0:39:18and this is really a portrait, it's a portrait of a person,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21it's not just a shot of a random person walking down the street,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24she's captured a real, raw emotion here.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31As interested as she was in other people,
0:39:31 > 0:39:35she gave away very little about herself.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39My father hired her in part because she had a European background,
0:39:39 > 0:39:41which my father did as well.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44Oftentimes, around the dinner table, for example,
0:39:44 > 0:39:45they would speak in French.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52Vivian was a rather opinionated woman.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54She had political leanings
0:39:54 > 0:39:57that I think were more on the left and feminist,
0:39:57 > 0:40:01but I would say that, wholly apart from her political opinions
0:40:01 > 0:40:04is perhaps the way that she carried them off.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08She was an extremely abrasive person,
0:40:08 > 0:40:12and often times it was pretty much in your face. And that was Vivian.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15When people tried to elicit information about her,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18she would quickly change the topic.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20In terms of her upbringing and background,
0:40:20 > 0:40:24there was nothing that I ever really...got to know.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31She was creating a play for children in the backyard
0:40:31 > 0:40:33and she would assign roles to all the children.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38They said, "Well, what role are you going to play?"
0:40:38 > 0:40:41And she just looked around and said, "I'll be the mystery woman."
0:40:42 > 0:40:45There were times when the parents would ask her,
0:40:45 > 0:40:51"So you lived in France, was that during the Occupation?"
0:40:51 > 0:40:53And she'd respond, "Maybe."
0:40:53 > 0:40:58So she really enjoyed having this air of mystery.
0:40:58 > 0:41:00And I think the mystery is still there.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06In just the area of Chicago where Vivian lived,
0:41:06 > 0:41:09Pamela Bannos is doing forensic research
0:41:09 > 0:41:13on what she calls Vivian Maier's fractured archive.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16Split between the different owners.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18These are ones that Vivian chose.
0:41:18 > 0:41:19That she chose to save.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23She's also digging deep into Vivian's mysterious past.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25..Hold in her hand and look at...
0:41:25 > 0:41:27I see Vivian Maier as a woman
0:41:27 > 0:41:31who is the product of the legacy of the French women before her.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37She is the daughter of a woman
0:41:37 > 0:41:39who was the daughter of another woman
0:41:39 > 0:41:42who were all live-in servants in New York.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47She is also today somebody else entirely,
0:41:47 > 0:41:52who I think has been invented by people who love a good story, maybe.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54THEY CHUCKLE
0:41:54 > 0:41:56Her grandmother, Eugenie Jaussaud,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59had a child out of wedlock at the age of 16.
0:42:00 > 0:42:06She left the Champsaur Valley, of France, sort of a shamed woman.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11She arrives in New York in 1901,
0:42:11 > 0:42:13leaving her baby behind,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16and then essentially becomes a live-in cook
0:42:16 > 0:42:17for the rest of her life.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19So Vivian's grandmother Eugenie
0:42:19 > 0:42:22leaves her illegitimate daughter behind in France
0:42:22 > 0:42:26to become a cook - and then what happens?
0:42:26 > 0:42:31In 1914, her daughter, Maria Jaussaud, arrives in Manhattan,
0:42:31 > 0:42:34travelling with an American woman, as her private maid.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39She's in New York, never having seen her mother.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46In 1919, Vivian's mother married her father,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49an Austrian-Hungarian, Charles Maier.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53And on her marriage certificate,
0:42:53 > 0:42:54she changes her parents' names
0:42:54 > 0:42:57to make it look as though she's legitimate.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00She corrects the family history,
0:43:00 > 0:43:03so she sort of invents herself at this point, at least on paper.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09This Vivian Maier story is filled with intrigue and secrecy
0:43:09 > 0:43:11and deception and privacy,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14which I think is a theme that goes throughout.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18Vivian told people she was born in France,
0:43:18 > 0:43:19but in fact
0:43:19 > 0:43:22she was born in Manhattan in 1926.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29Aged four, Vivian was living in St Mary's Street, in the Bronx,
0:43:29 > 0:43:34with her mother, but without her father or her elder brother.
0:43:34 > 0:43:35But, there's a woman living with them
0:43:35 > 0:43:38from a neighbouring village in France -
0:43:38 > 0:43:41a studio photographer, Jeanne Bertrand.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45Maybe she had some influence on Vivian, the photographer to be.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50Jeanne Bertrand had had an illegitimate child
0:43:50 > 0:43:52whom she'd given up to adoption,
0:43:52 > 0:43:55and she'd since had a mental breakdown.
0:43:57 > 0:44:00We have these French women with no families,
0:44:00 > 0:44:02we have babies with no fathers,
0:44:02 > 0:44:07we have this connection of women who are displaced,
0:44:07 > 0:44:10who then end up living with other families
0:44:10 > 0:44:14or give their children to other families or give their children up.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22Vivian Maier appears to have had very few personal relationships.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24She certainly never got married,
0:44:24 > 0:44:26we don't know of any, any other relationship.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29So that would suggest this displacement
0:44:29 > 0:44:32- comes from the circumstances.- Yes.
0:44:40 > 0:44:44In 1932, Pamela finds Vivian's mother,
0:44:44 > 0:44:47using the Swiss Benevolent Society, home for single women,
0:44:47 > 0:44:50as her address in an advert she places in the paper
0:44:50 > 0:44:53for a job as a chambermaid.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56She's now calling herself Mademoiselle Jaussaud.
0:44:57 > 0:44:59Within months, she gives up
0:44:59 > 0:45:02and they go to France for six years.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13Vivian was to live in her mother and grandmother's village in France
0:45:13 > 0:45:15from the age of six to 12.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20She was seen as something of an outsider.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28Later, Vivian was to take thousands of photographs here.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32WOMAN SPEAKS IN FRENCH
0:45:32 > 0:45:35TRANSLATION: She captured my attention because she made my imagination work.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40She came from America.
0:45:41 > 0:45:47It's El Dorado, especially for a little girl of ten.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51For me, she was an extra-terrestrial
0:45:51 > 0:45:54who had arrived from the United States.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58She had a turned-up nose
0:45:58 > 0:46:00and a runny nose.
0:46:01 > 0:46:07The flat where they stayed was not very comfortable, or very warm.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10MAN SPEAKS IN FRENCH
0:46:10 > 0:46:13- TRANSLATION:- She didn't think like us at all.
0:46:13 > 0:46:19I remember one day, we noticed some chickens scratching in a farmyard.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23She was disgusted, and decided never to eat eggs again.
0:46:25 > 0:46:31All the boys in the village were very pleased to be in her company.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33She was a bit reserved.
0:46:35 > 0:46:40I'd often see her in the village square playing Marelle,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43a game where you draw squares -
0:46:43 > 0:46:45there's hell and heaven, paradise,
0:46:45 > 0:46:48and you jump by throwing a stone.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53I remember she threw it a long way.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59We were all looking at her knickers.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03SHE CHUCKLES
0:47:03 > 0:47:07TRANSLATION: That's my mother, my mother!
0:47:08 > 0:47:13In the shop,
0:47:13 > 0:47:15we had a cake shop...
0:47:17 > 0:47:19It's good, this photo. I'd like to have it.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23Usually, she was preoccupied,
0:47:23 > 0:47:24there was so much work,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26but here, she looks calm.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40- TRANSLATION:- All that is very, very long ago.
0:47:46 > 0:47:48After 12 more years in New York,
0:47:48 > 0:47:52a 24-year-old Vivian visited the village again.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54It was soon after the Second World War.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03How she learned to use a camera remains a mystery,
0:48:03 > 0:48:04but she knew what she was doing.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08These are her first known pictures,
0:48:08 > 0:48:11previously dismissed as snapshots.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13When I started looking through these pictures,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17I started wondering which photographs these people were talking about,
0:48:17 > 0:48:19because what I was seeing was extremely different.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23This is not a child working with an innocent machine,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26this is a woman who knows how to work a camera.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30This is the box camera, the humble snapshot camera.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34Literally, it has one, one shutter speed, and no other adjustment.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38- And the suggestion is that this is what she used in, in France.- Right.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41But she wasn't, in fact she might have been using a camera
0:48:41 > 0:48:42- not dissimilar to this.- Correct.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46This particular camera is probably from the 1940s.
0:48:46 > 0:48:50You can focus it, you can adjust the shutter speeds,
0:48:50 > 0:48:51you can adjust the apertures,
0:48:51 > 0:48:53you could fold it down
0:48:53 > 0:48:55and it collapses into itself.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58This could also be considered a traveller's camera.
0:49:02 > 0:49:06She was developing the skills that would become her hallmark.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14Right early on,
0:49:14 > 0:49:19you see her observe a character sitting on a stoop or something
0:49:19 > 0:49:23in a public space, and she works around him.
0:49:24 > 0:49:30She followed her inner line of curiosity,
0:49:30 > 0:49:36and it's that that establishes an artistic tendency,
0:49:36 > 0:49:38cos the amateur doesn't do that.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Vivian was in France to sort out the sale of a farm
0:49:43 > 0:49:47that belonged to her great-aunt, who'd died during the war.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51It was called Beauregard, "beautiful view".
0:49:54 > 0:49:56Her grandfather lived nearby.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01He was poor, teased by the village boys, almost an outcast.
0:50:02 > 0:50:06It was a horrible echo of what would happen to Vivian herself
0:50:06 > 0:50:10and to her mother, who would end up in a seedy hotel in New York.
0:50:12 > 0:50:14Nelly lived next door.
0:50:14 > 0:50:15SHE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
0:50:15 > 0:50:16TRANSLATION: It's me there,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18like two sisters.
0:50:18 > 0:50:22Wherever I went, she'd come with me.
0:50:22 > 0:50:26What everybody said was, they all thought she was a spy,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29because she took photographs all over the place.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35My parents and I never thought anything like that.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Look at her there, she's beautiful, it looks just like her.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45She was refined, and sincere above all.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48That's what I remember about her.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55On Sundays, we'd all go to dances, but she didn't go to dances.
0:50:58 > 0:51:00SHE CLEARS HER THROAT
0:51:02 > 0:51:06And she never married, she never made a life for herself.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10Yet she's a pretty woman.
0:51:14 > 0:51:17This morning, you've brought me something
0:51:17 > 0:51:20which has made me very happy - to see her again.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23It was a joy.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31Vivian roamed the area, taking views of mountains and monuments.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34She was, it seems, making postcards
0:51:34 > 0:51:37through the camera shop in the village,
0:51:37 > 0:51:39so maybe, at this point,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42she was hoping to make photography into a career.
0:51:46 > 0:51:47The spy story grew -
0:51:47 > 0:51:51and the idea that she had a gun to defend herself.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55A woman wandering alone is the stuff from which myths are made.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04In the nearby town of Gap
0:52:04 > 0:52:07she photographed a Communist Party rally,
0:52:07 > 0:52:11and she was always seeking out people living on the edge.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19In the spring of 1951,
0:52:19 > 0:52:22she heads back across the ocean to New York.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29It's as though Vivian was seeing the city
0:52:29 > 0:52:32in which she'd spent most of her life for the first time.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38'She's 26 years old when she's doing this -
0:52:38 > 0:52:42'hopeful years, when you have your life ahead of you.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45'She's learned everything so fast, she's learned how to look
0:52:45 > 0:52:47'and she's going to places that are new.
0:52:50 > 0:52:52'We're actually walking in her footsteps.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59'It feels sort of uncanny to look through the camera
0:52:59 > 0:53:00'and see the same things.'
0:53:05 > 0:53:08And then, I guarantee you she shoots the East River right here.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11This is obviously something that we can catch better on foot
0:53:11 > 0:53:12than, than in a car.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22She goes to these heights
0:53:22 > 0:53:23and creates these vistas.
0:53:23 > 0:53:25These reminded me of the photographs
0:53:25 > 0:53:28that she had shot in the Alps, in France,
0:53:28 > 0:53:29when she was there in 1950.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36Now, like her grandmother and mother before her,
0:53:36 > 0:53:39she turned to domestic service and started to work as a nanny.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44And, ever more intensely, as a photographer.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49She's on the balcony of the Hotel Astor for the Macy's Day Parade.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51You can see from the right
0:53:51 > 0:53:54she's actually standing with a bunch of children.
0:53:54 > 0:53:57- These children might be her charges, mightn't they?- They might be, right.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59She gets access to these places
0:53:59 > 0:54:02because she's working for wealthy families who get access to places.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09But often, she creates her own access.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12So she's standing in the shadow here, by this wall,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14seeing Salvador Dali behind that post,
0:54:14 > 0:54:17actually giving an autograph to a woman
0:54:17 > 0:54:19at the doorway to the Museum Of Modern Art.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25She actually walks down the street here following Dali,
0:54:25 > 0:54:29and shoots the second photograph
0:54:29 > 0:54:32and she's caught him in this moment.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34She dates the photograph
0:54:34 > 0:54:38to the 24th of January, 1952,
0:54:38 > 0:54:40and this is the time when there's the exhibition
0:54:40 > 0:54:43Five French Photographers at the Museum Of Modern Art.
0:54:43 > 0:54:45So I'm assuming that she crossed that doorway
0:54:45 > 0:54:49and she went into the museum and she saw this exhibition.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57She was teaching herself about photography,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01and it's now that Vivian made the switch to her trademark camera,
0:55:01 > 0:55:02the Rolleiflex,
0:55:02 > 0:55:04with its large square negative.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08It's the first Rolleiflex picture I found
0:55:08 > 0:55:10and it's taken on the 12th of July, 1952,
0:55:10 > 0:55:12as she writes on the back of the print.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17She's capturing the vivid contrast of the city.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19She's found her subject matter.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28In 1952, the hottest summer on record in New York,
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Vivian is crossing the city with her new camera.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42This is the Third Avenue train that she took up and down
0:55:42 > 0:55:46and when it gets down below a certain point, it's the Bowery.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54So by the time she leaves New York, the train has been dismantled.
0:55:58 > 0:56:02Now, the Bowery is as gentrified as the rest of Manhattan,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05but then, it was a byword for drunks and down and outs.
0:56:06 > 0:56:08We're over by the Bowery bums,
0:56:08 > 0:56:10where we have, like, people like this man,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14who has been beat up and he's asleep or he's unconscious in his cart,
0:56:14 > 0:56:18and men who are alcoholics and passed out on the sidewalk.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21And this sunny summer day where she's here.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25And she's actually standing over there
0:56:25 > 0:56:27taking a photograph of this man, who's looking down at her
0:56:27 > 0:56:29because she's got her Rolleiflex at her waist.
0:56:29 > 0:56:34He's looking at us, but he's looking into the lens in this picture.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37She had to be about three feet away to get a close-up.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48To go up and photograph a stranger on the street,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51you have to hold your ground and be fearless
0:56:51 > 0:56:56and take what you want, because it's yours.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02You could see that there was something that she was interested in,
0:57:02 > 0:57:07that she was going to, drawn to, day after day.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11She would keep on working certain themes - the underdog,
0:57:11 > 0:57:14the cast-aside,
0:57:14 > 0:57:16the worker.
0:57:20 > 0:57:22"You are too young to fall asleep forever.
0:57:22 > 0:57:26"And when you sleep, you remind me of the dead."
0:57:30 > 0:57:33She has the tools, and her work is really taking off
0:57:33 > 0:57:36and so is she.
0:57:36 > 0:57:41She planned a whole year away, but she needed a new passport.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44So these images show how she kept her own archive
0:57:44 > 0:57:46by photographing her own documents.
0:57:54 > 0:57:59This is the photograph of her 1959 passport application
0:57:59 > 0:58:03that shows she's lied about her parents' death.
0:58:03 > 0:58:05She checks that both of her parents are deceased.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08- She checks...- She checks that both of her parents are deceased
0:58:08 > 0:58:11and, in fact, also eliminates her mother's name
0:58:11 > 0:58:13from the application entirely.
0:58:13 > 0:58:17'In fact, both her parents lived another ten years,
0:58:17 > 0:58:20'but in 1959, they're dead to her.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22'She's cut loose.'
0:58:24 > 0:58:26She actually lists all the places she's going.
0:58:26 > 0:58:29She's going to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indochina,
0:58:29 > 0:58:32Siam, East Indies, Malaysia -
0:58:32 > 0:58:35and she did this tour.
0:58:35 > 0:58:37- She actually did this tour? - She did this tour.
0:58:37 > 0:58:41- And did she take many photographs? - She took thousands of photographs.
0:58:43 > 0:58:45So more than 50 years ago,
0:58:45 > 0:58:48a single nanny sets off on a world tour.
0:58:48 > 0:58:53This is before motorways, before mass air travel, before gap years.
0:58:53 > 0:58:56She fits in a second visit to her village in France
0:58:56 > 0:58:59to pick up a cheque from her great-aunt's property.
0:58:59 > 0:59:02This time, she also takes in Versailles and the Louvre.
0:59:02 > 0:59:04People make an issue of her being untaught,
0:59:04 > 0:59:06but she was teaching herself.
0:59:08 > 0:59:10Her visit to Paris coincides
0:59:10 > 0:59:11with that of the US President,
0:59:11 > 0:59:13so she shoots that too.
0:59:13 > 0:59:15She's like a reporter,
0:59:15 > 0:59:17but with no newspaper, no outlet.
0:59:55 > 0:59:58It's really about being alive to the world,
0:59:58 > 1:00:00out in the world,
1:00:00 > 1:00:07and seeing yet another moment of...of consciousness
1:00:07 > 1:00:12in which an awakened state is what it's all about.
1:00:12 > 1:00:16That you are privileged to see that yet again,
1:00:16 > 1:00:18this life is doing this for me.
1:00:18 > 1:00:22You're dealing with the disappearing moment.
1:00:22 > 1:00:24It's there and it's gone,
1:00:24 > 1:00:29and the only way that...it's recognised as having happened
1:00:29 > 1:00:32is you observing it, knowing it and photographing it.
1:00:32 > 1:00:39So you are the repository and, and I, I think that...you know,
1:00:39 > 1:00:42it's great if you can make prints out of it and share this,
1:00:42 > 1:00:45but, at a certain point, if you've done it long enough,
1:00:45 > 1:00:47you don't really, you don't really have to,
1:00:47 > 1:00:49it's for you, it's just for you.
1:00:53 > 1:00:55But maybe working alone with no audience
1:00:55 > 1:00:57was too much of a strain in the end.
1:00:59 > 1:01:01It seems the centre would not hold.
1:01:05 > 1:01:06The world had opened up,
1:01:06 > 1:01:09but by the late '60s, was closing in for Vivian.
1:01:21 > 1:01:22The shelter she'd found
1:01:22 > 1:01:24with the Ginsberg family in Chicago
1:01:24 > 1:01:26came to an end.
1:01:28 > 1:01:32It wasn't until all the Ginsberg boys went to college
1:01:32 > 1:01:33that finally Mrs Ginsberg said,
1:01:33 > 1:01:36"Vivian, maybe it's time now for you to go on."
1:01:38 > 1:01:41And breaking up was very hard for them and the family.
1:01:43 > 1:01:48The Ginsberg family very prominently said that she was like Mary Poppins.
1:01:48 > 1:01:51Almost all the other families that I've talked to
1:01:51 > 1:01:56all say that Mary Poppins is about the last adjective...phrase
1:01:56 > 1:01:58that they would use in talking about Vivian.
1:01:59 > 1:02:03She did have her dark side and she had her light sides.
1:02:04 > 1:02:06When she taught me, that was wonderful,
1:02:06 > 1:02:07that was just wonderful.
1:02:09 > 1:02:11But, you know,
1:02:11 > 1:02:14her emotions could get better of her sometimes, and so...
1:02:14 > 1:02:16just leave her be.
1:02:20 > 1:02:23Oh, you didn't want her to get angry with you, believe me.
1:02:29 > 1:02:31Where there'd been pleasure, excitement,
1:02:31 > 1:02:34increasingly there was disappointment and dread.
1:02:37 > 1:02:39She witnessed the Chicago riots, in 1968.
1:02:46 > 1:02:48Bobby Kennedy being assassinated,
1:02:48 > 1:02:50the chaos that was going on in '68
1:02:50 > 1:02:53and her photography, very much, you get that sense of it.
1:02:55 > 1:02:57Her work after that,
1:02:57 > 1:02:59she would go to the same places, she would go,
1:02:59 > 1:03:00take the same kinds of walks,
1:03:00 > 1:03:04but instead of noticing beautiful abstractions on the sidewalk
1:03:04 > 1:03:08and beautiful light coming through trees, she'd start to see garbage.
1:03:10 > 1:03:13When you see the weight of all these images, thousands of images,
1:03:13 > 1:03:17just the mildewing, wet newspapers and garbage cans...
1:03:18 > 1:03:21..it, there's a weight to it and there's, there's a power to it
1:03:21 > 1:03:26and I don't think you can deny that it somehow is linked to who she was.
1:03:28 > 1:03:30It was all bad news.
1:03:30 > 1:03:32It was as if she was drowning,
1:03:32 > 1:03:36as if she'd given up on people.
1:03:53 > 1:03:56As the years passed, her jobs got shorter,
1:03:56 > 1:04:00her hoarding and secretive behaviour more extreme.
1:04:05 > 1:04:08It was a little bit of a mystery, what she did during the weekends,
1:04:08 > 1:04:10where she stayed.
1:04:10 > 1:04:13She would, you know, take her belongings, her possessions,
1:04:13 > 1:04:17often bags...of clothes that she would, she would have,
1:04:17 > 1:04:19always with her camera,
1:04:19 > 1:04:23and likewise, she would return sometimes with, you know,
1:04:23 > 1:04:26new bags and more clothing.
1:04:34 > 1:04:37No work exists beyond the 1980s,
1:04:37 > 1:04:39but she was still carrying her camera,
1:04:39 > 1:04:41still putting rolls of film
1:04:41 > 1:04:44in her own personal bucket at Central Cameras,
1:04:44 > 1:04:47rolls she couldn't afford to collect.
1:04:47 > 1:04:50That was her major difficulty
1:04:50 > 1:04:52in the last 15, 20 years -
1:04:52 > 1:04:55economics, not having enough economics.
1:04:56 > 1:04:59She couldn't afford all of the things that she wanted.
1:05:00 > 1:05:02Maybe more work will still emerge,
1:05:02 > 1:05:06but maybe she would have preferred if it didn't.
1:05:06 > 1:05:10I don't think she would like it at all, no.
1:05:11 > 1:05:14There's too much going on,
1:05:14 > 1:05:17too much delving into who she was or what she was
1:05:17 > 1:05:19and why was she this and so on,
1:05:19 > 1:05:22and the trickle downs and the trickle ups and, hey,
1:05:22 > 1:05:25I like taking pictures - that was her release, that was her world.
1:05:26 > 1:05:30I didn't go to the shows to see the interpretation of other people
1:05:30 > 1:05:34of what they felt about her, cos I have my own feelings about her
1:05:34 > 1:05:36and I respect the way she was.
1:05:36 > 1:05:38Maybe I would have learned something,
1:05:38 > 1:05:39but would it have been the truth?
1:05:39 > 1:05:43It would have been someone else's interpretation of a truth.
1:05:46 > 1:05:48Yet she's caught the imagination of a world
1:05:48 > 1:05:52captivated with taking pictures incessantly on their phones.
1:05:54 > 1:05:55Vivian has gone viral.
1:05:57 > 1:05:59She now lives on the web,
1:05:59 > 1:06:02but she lived in her imagination.
1:06:02 > 1:06:06Her compulsion to take pictures was her life.
1:06:07 > 1:06:09It's what she has left behind.
1:06:11 > 1:06:15Some of the pictures of Vivian's were from when I was a kid,
1:06:15 > 1:06:19cos I was probably there, and I didn't even realise.
1:06:21 > 1:06:23I probably walked past her,
1:06:23 > 1:06:24but I never would have known.
1:06:26 > 1:06:27Can you contact them
1:06:27 > 1:06:31and see what's happening with the main show in Shanghai? Yeah...
1:06:31 > 1:06:35'You see, our work isn't our work until it's shared,
1:06:35 > 1:06:36'somebody else has to see it.'
1:06:39 > 1:06:41She did have a very private life,
1:06:41 > 1:06:43so I think she would not be very happy about that,
1:06:43 > 1:06:45about people knowing about her.
1:06:47 > 1:06:52As her story dissipates, and our stories dissipate as they should,
1:06:52 > 1:06:57and the work remains, that's, I think she would be thrilled with it.
1:06:57 > 1:07:00In 200 years, if people are looking at her work,
1:07:00 > 1:07:03I'd be absolutely delighted and I think she would be also.
1:07:05 > 1:07:08You know, at some point, I think I'm going to give some away,
1:07:08 > 1:07:12maybe one a week for a bunch of weeks and see what happens.
1:07:12 > 1:07:14Give them back to the streets, so to speak.
1:07:14 > 1:07:17Look at all this, this is only one third of what I have.
1:07:17 > 1:07:19There's three times this,
1:07:19 > 1:07:20so there's more than enough.
1:07:22 > 1:07:24There's people grabbing cameras right now,
1:07:24 > 1:07:28they're doing a lot of street photography because of Vivian.
1:07:28 > 1:07:30I can't give away the rabbits,
1:07:30 > 1:07:32that's my favourite.
1:07:44 > 1:07:48It must have been around 2007 or so, I was on my way to work
1:07:48 > 1:07:51and I saw her walking down the street,
1:07:51 > 1:07:53and I had a moment where I thought,
1:07:53 > 1:07:56"Oh, should I...come over,
1:07:56 > 1:07:58"walk over and say hello?"
1:07:58 > 1:08:01And I just didn't, I was running a little late and I just thought...
1:08:01 > 1:08:04So I stood there and I just kind of watched her walk,
1:08:04 > 1:08:06and I thought, "Wow!
1:08:06 > 1:08:10"Vivian's still going strong, that is strange."
1:08:19 > 1:08:20Right at the end of her life,
1:08:20 > 1:08:24a neighbour caught sight of her round the rubbish bins.
1:08:24 > 1:08:27I first saw her in the neighbourhood
1:08:27 > 1:08:28in the alleys.
1:08:28 > 1:08:32She used to be carrying shopping bags, books.
1:08:32 > 1:08:34I thought she was homeless.
1:08:37 > 1:08:40When I swim, I started noticing her over here.
1:08:40 > 1:08:44She used to sit over here behind these trees,
1:08:44 > 1:08:48kind of a...I don't know, out of the way, she didn't really want,
1:08:48 > 1:08:52she didn't want to be bothered, I think she knew she was different.
1:08:53 > 1:08:55She'd just be staring at the lake.
1:08:58 > 1:09:00I'd swim for a half hour out there and
1:09:00 > 1:09:03I'd look up and she would be gone.
1:09:34 > 1:09:37Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd