Carole Hollander

Carole Hollander's profile picture
Life After
FinalPhotograph

Carole Hollander is a Maryland based artist and photographer working exclusively with alternative or non-silver photographic processes. She photographs using vintage large format folding field cameras. The resulting negatives, which are 4x5 inches to 8x10 inches, are contact printed onto single or multiple hand-coated light sensitive emulsions using ultraviolet light.

Formally educated in Fine Art in Connecticut and Arizona, Ms. Hollander’s work has been exhibited in galleries and in private collections in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Southwest. She is the founder and director of The Large Format & Alternative Processes Gathering, at 5-state community of photographers who meet monthly to present demonstrations, lectures, and workshops in Rockville, Maryland.

Artomatic 2012

Raised in New England, I obtained a fine arts education at Arizona State University studying the history of photography and hand coated light sensitive emulsions. Following graduation I worked for the Library of Congress as a 19th Century Photographic Processes Specialist for the Washingtoniana Project. Eventually I set aside photographic research to raise a family, but a rag-tag darkroom was always set up in a basement corner to process yards of 35mm film from time to time. In 1994 I built a dedicated darkroom for large format film processing. I continued my work with cyanotype, van dyke, and gum bichromate printing and began to experiment with the theoretical processes I learned about in art school.

In the late 90‘s my father passed away. After scattering a tiny amount of his cremains at a favorite holiday spot, the remainder sat in a small box on the top shelf of a closet. Having the cremated remains of a loved one can be a perplexing burden, one that is avoided, neglected, or even forgotten about altogether.  For many months I was unsure of what to do with them; they were the physical remains of someone who had filled my life with love and memories and I was not content to leave them on a dusty shelf or toss them into the wind.

I went to work in my darkroom and in 2 years developed a unique photographic process that allowed me to make a visual and physical memorial; I created a photograph of my father with a uniquely physical element, his cremated remains. Like a memorial or burial site, it became a place where my father is, a place to visit his memory.

The other portraits in this exhibit are also cremains prints. For more information, or to commission a print, contact me at FinalPhotograph@gmail.com

11th Floor, space 280