That we know about Maier at all - and we are just starting to - is a bit of amazing luck:
In 2007, Chicago Realtor John Maloof paid $400 at an auction for a storage locker filled with rolls of undeveloped film. He was searching for photos for a book project about his Chicago neighborhood of Portage Park. In a moment straight out of an episode of "Auction Hunters," Maloof discovered a treasure-trove of thousands of negatives that turned out to be from a nanny who took up street photography in her spare time yet kept most of her work hidden. The photographer was Vivian Maier. After scanning a few of the images Maloof quickly realized he stumbled onto something remarkable.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/01/vivian-maier-undeveloped-film.html
Maier's story - she supported herself by working as a North Shore nanny; Phil Donahue was among her employers - is an archetypal tale of unnoticed genius that has attracted a lot of attention. Interestingly, actor Tim Roth is the co-curator of a new gallery exhibition of her work in Los Angeles. More on Maier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Maier
http://www.vivianmaier.com/
More than 150,000 of her negatives remain to be developed, so she continues to be a discovery in progress.
The second gorgeous and suggestive black-and-white image is from a contemporary Yorkshire photographer, Robert Norbury:
http://www.robertnorbury.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/jan/04/photography5?newsfeed=true#/?picture=383249555&index=0
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