glazed cupboard doors. On the opposite wall, a
pantry has been repurposed as a laundry room.
Nearby, one of Covington’s signature refrigerator
doors doubles as a period piece and a magnetized
memo board.
The kitchen area expands into an attached
porch, where the bookkeeper keeps a small
desk. A day bed on the opposite wall, camouflaged
with quilts and colorful throw pillows,
masks a trundle bed that Holloman opens up
when her out-of-town shooters roll in from
Raleigh for a big assignment.
Placed throughout the home studio are
Holloman’s assemblages:
personal collections of
cameras displayed across
the surface of the living
room mantel, decoupage
dressmakers’ dummies, her
grandmother’s upholstered
slipper chair.
The decorative pieces are
not haphazard, each has a
story to tell, each purposely
placed, each resonating
with Millie Holloman’s
very personal aesthetic, the
one that influences a photographic
style that is felt
as much as seen.
44
WBM october 2010
“I like to shoot from a relationship perspective,”
Holloman says, “capturing moments
and memories as opposed to super-posed
portraiture. I do documentary projects for my
personal inspiration.”
One of the earliest of her documentary
photo essays is the story of a boy and his
young mother, a local photographer, diagnosed
with aplastic anemia.
“She wrote me and said that if something
ever happened to her, she didn’t want him to
grow up without knowing his mom. Being a
photographer, she recognized the importance
of having images of them.
She wanted me to document
the process — her going
through this — so that if she
didn’t make it, her son would
have something to remember
her by.”
The poignant black and
white photographs document
the mother and son’s days
together in the medical center
waiting room, where the
mother waited daily for her
blood transfusions. When she
recovered, Holloman went
out with the entire family and
took their photos in the park.
*The decorative
pieces are not
haphazard, each
has a story to
tell, each purposely
placed,
each resonating
with Millie’s
very personal
aesthetic.