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Vivian Maier, a nanny in Chicago, photographed the city's streets for decades and showed almost no one. Her negatives surfaced at a storage-locker auction in 2007, two years before she died, and she is now counted among the great street photographers of the twentieth century.

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A young estate agent and collector, John Maloof, bought a box of her negatives for about $380 while researching a local history book. He found striking, humane street photography and began posting scans online in 2009, shortly after her death; the response was immediate and international. Maier had left many rolls of film undeveloped, sometimes for decades, and told the families she worked for almost nothing about her photography. Exhibitions, books and the Oscar-nominated documentary Finding Vivian Maier (2013) followed. The case also started a lasting debate, and a court dispute over her estate, about whether work its maker never chose to show should be printed, exhibited and sold.

Türkçe oku
Chicago'da dadılık yapan Vivian Maier, şehrin sokaklarını onlarca yıl fotoğrafladı ama çektiklerini neredeyse kimseye göstermedi. Negatifleri, ölümünden iki yıl önce, 2007'de bir depo açık artırmasında ortaya çıktı; bugün 20. yüzyılın büyük sokak fotoğrafçılarından biri sayılıyor.

Emlakçı ve koleksiyoncu John Maloof, yerel bir tarih kitabı için araştırma yaparken onun negatiflerinden oluşan bir kutuyu 380 dolar kadar bir paraya satın aldı. Karşısına çarpıcı ve insana dokunan sokak fotoğrafları çıktı; Maier'in 2009'daki ölümünden kısa süre sonra taramaları internette paylaşmaya başladı ve ilgi bir anda dünyaya yayıldı. Maier pek çok film rulosunu, kimi zaman onlarca yıl, banyo ettirmeden saklamış, yanında çalıştığı ailelere fotoğrafçılığından neredeyse hiç söz etmemişti. Ardından sergiler, kitaplar ve Oscar'a aday gösterilen Finding Vivian Maier (2013) belgeseli geldi. Olay, sanatçının hiç göstermek istemediği işlerin basılıp sergilenmesinin ve satılmasının doğru olup olmadığı üzerine süregelen bir tartışmayı ve mirası konusunda bir mahkeme davasını da beraberinde getirdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Vivian Maier
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