Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was born in New York City, and spent forty years working as a nanny in Chicago. During her lifetime she shot more than one hundred thousand images, although her work remained unknown until it was discovered at an auction in Chicago by historian John Mallof. Her photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums as well as featured in magazines and newspapers worldwide.
Colin Westerbeck is the author of numerous books on photography, including Chuck Close : Photographer ; A Democracy of Imagery ; and with Joel Meyerowitz, Bystander : A History of Street Photography at the University of California, Riverside, he has written a weekly column on photography for the Los Angeles Times and is a frequent contributor to Art in America. He lives in Los Angeles. Joel Meyerowitz is a street photographer in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, although he works exclusively in color.
As an early advocate, he became instrumental in changing the attitude toward color photography ; he has published twenty-five other books including a two-volume retrospective, Taking My Time. A Guggenheim fellow, he is the recipient of both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities awards. His work is in the collections of many prestigious museums worldwide.
He lives in Italy and New York.