Sometimes, when taking portraits, the subjects are caught looking straight into the camera, yet with a vantage point from below as was usual for a Rolleiflex. In her images, these figures often foreground concrete structures such as skyscrapers, paved roads, and shopfronts. The subjects of Vivian Maier's photographs are mainly people she encountered while taking walks.

He later went on to produce the Oscar-nominated documentary Finding Vivian Maier in 2013. Her photographs and body of work remained largely unknown until former real estate agent John Maloof purchased a box of her negatives in a blind auction in 2007. Maier passed away in 2009, leaving behind over 100,000 negatives shot between Chicago and New York City and rolls of undeveloped 8mm and 16mm footage. When she was relieved of her duties in the early 70s, the artist abandoned developing her own film, amassing a large collection of undeveloped negatives and unprinted work. In 1956, Maier processed many of her black and white photographs from the comfort of a private bathroom in the house of the family she was nannying for in Chicago. Throughout her life, Maier often photographed in black and white though went on to work in colour and video by the 80s and 90s. In 1952, she began using a Rolleiflex camera and later on used a Leica IIIc, and various German SLR cameras. At the time, she operated the amateur Kodak Brownie camera which had limited functionality and no focus control. Maier began her interest in photography in 1949 while she was still living in France. Upon her return, she took up a job as a nanny and spent the rest of her life as a caregiver, taking her iconic photographs of people on the streets during her leisure time.

She spent much of her childhood in France before returning to the United States in 1951.

Vivian maier art