“Florida, April 7, 1960”

​No photographs by Vivian Maier appeared until after her death. Only when two collectors purchased boxes of her negatives at a 2007 self-storage auction, sight unseen, and started printing them, did the street photographer’s remarkable work of more than 150,000 images become known. Quietly shooting mainly in New York and Chicago, she supported herself as a nanny for most of her adult life. Destitute in old age and unrecognized as a major artist, she died in a nursing home found by her former charges. Note the careful composition of this image, with the pale struts overhead leading to the bright hat, to which the white shirts of the couple, from beneath, also direct attention. Do you think the young man’s gaze plays a role in our view of the sweet couple under the hat?