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Mönckebergstraße, Hamburg. Germany. November 2011.

I genuinely enjoy living in Hamburg. The city has posh, swanky areas that appeal to my sophisticated side and on the other hand, it’s laid back enough so I can feel good enough about myself leaving the apartment with a shabby, laid back look. Some areas of Hamburg certainly have that urban grittiness associated with the world’s top cities such as Paris, London, New York and Tokyo, but looking closely, I guess “Hamburg is not New York” – at least not when considering the Christmas Parade taking place during the weekends on Hamburg’s premier shopping mile, Mönckebergstraße.

Although I consider myself not only talented but also interested in photography, I wouldn’t be able to name more than two or three renowned masters of the art, at least when it comes to street photography. Since this week, I can safely put another name on that list – Vivian Maier. She is yet to achieve the status of a renowned master, but given that her work is up to 60 years old and has just recently been discovered, she is probably halfway there.

Vivian Maier, born in New York City in 1926, passed away on April 21, 2009, just a little more than a year after her work has been purchased in auctions by at least John Maloof and Jeffrey Goldstein. Both of these gentlemen have since picked up the job of promoting late Maier’s work and rightfully so. Maier was not a professional photographer at the time. On her days off work, she roamed the streets of New York City and later Chicago to take thousands of street photographs, most of them with a medium format dual-lens Rollei. However, the strengths and impact of her work is evident and has been praised by many. In my own personal view, her work is as significant as the street photography of master of the art Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of modern photojournalism.