PHOTO COURTESY GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM For much of his career, photographer Carl Chiarenza made collages from ripped paper and other bits of detritus and photographed them, resulting in quietly powerful abstract images such as the 1990 gelatin silver print, Untitled 280, seen here.
A lot has changed for photographer Carl Chiarenza since the 1950s, when as a teenager he was a valet parker at a new museum then called the George Eastman House. In those days, he spent time photographing places in and around Rochester, honing his talent and sharpening his eye for things that most people miss. All these years later, his life’s work in pictures is on display at the same institution where he once parked cars.