He was writing a book for Historical Society which he was the President, So he frequents the auction house in his naborhood”Portage Park” and bided on a box of photo negatives. See John wasn’t a photographer or filmmaker. He was President of Historical Society and worked in real-estate. John Maloof was simply looking for some good photos to complete his historical book on Chicago. John placed the book into the closet for few month until he completed the book. Few months later he was looking through the negative and was amazed by some of the photos. He searched the internet and couldn’t find anything on Vivian Maier it was like she didn’t exist. The photos were so good he went back to auction house and purchased the rest of her belonging. Contacted other customer and purchased their boxes. Puzzled that this lady was nowhere to be found and had no past. He dedicated his time to finding who she was and where she is, he located an address on some papers she had. Did address search and found people who knew her still lived at these addresses. He went to meet the family and some were dead but the children were of course grown, but they were the most important. See John Maloof found out Vivian Maier was a nanny and the people that new her best were the kids that were all grown up know. A NANNY! John couldn’t believe it, all this talent and she was working as nanny. He