I'm totally unsure what's going on here. But it's worth some discussion and dissection. Is anyone else familiar with this mysterious story?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0366jd5http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0366jd5 wrote:The incredible story of a mysterious nanny who died in 2009 leaving behind a secret hoard - thousands of stunning photographs. Never seen in her lifetime, they were found by chance in a Chicago storage locker and auctioned off cheaply.
Now Vivian Maier has gone viral and her magical pictures sell for thousands of dollars. Vivian was a tough street photographer, a secret poet of suburbia. In life she was a recluse, a hoarder, spinning tall tales about her French roots. Presented by Alan Yentob, the film includes stories from those who knew her and those who revealed her astonishing work
See http://www.vivianmaier.com, paying particular attention to the self-portrait section...
http://www.vivianmaier.com/media/galler ... s/1075.jpg
http://www.fotoforensics.com/analysis.p ... 257.127876
http://www.vivianmaier.com/media/galler ... b_1955.jpg
Here is one minor disinfo forum venture into the possibilities of hoax, and the 'Maier' phenomenon (see http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/0 ... -old/?_r=0 (obviously a trivially-simplistic solution)
There is something very odd going on here, I feel. Opinions / comments are most welcome, including perhaps "hey, don't be so paranoid, she was simply a totally-unknown visionary artist that was ahead of her time"So did conspiracy theories. “Could this be a hoax?” wondered a commenter under the name Film Noir Anti-Hero. Another, known simply as Greg, replied: “The idea being that somebody has been running around taking a lot of photos of people dressed up as if they were living in the ’40s with a T.L.R. in order to publish them on the Web and giving all the credit to someone who has recently died?”