Contemporary photographer Ellen Carey has unveiled a groundbreaking artistic concept called the "finitogram," where she assumes the role of CLO (Camera-Less Operator) to transform discarded photographic materials into finished artworks. This innovative approach involves rescuing abandoned sheets of photographic paper bearing random chemical marks from darkrooms, breathing new life into these forgotten photo-objects that were left unfinished and unsigned by their original creators.

The finitogram project represents a radical departure from traditional photography, drawing inspiration from Marcel Duchamp's ready-made concept while partnering time and chemistry with light to create entirely new visual experiences. Carey's CLO persona opens what she calls "a visual vade mecum" to these anonymous photo-objects, gathered from throw-aways that strike poses as light drawings. The term "finitogram" derives from the Italian "non finito," meaning incomplete works of art, and serves to reinterpret the traditional photogram and its legacy.

These mysterious photo-objects begin their journey in the darkness of unknown times and places, created somewhere in the void of darkrooms by unnamed photographers whom Carey refers to as "camera operators" - a 19th-century term for anonymous practitioners. The CLO rescues these materials in situ, recognizing that each abandoned piece has a story to tell, despite having no known authors. This approach positions these works within the global category of vernacular photography, the kind of lost and found pictures commonly seen in auction houses and flea markets.

Carey's innovative process reverses and expands the circle of time in image-making, moving toward an end to the use of the artist's hand while foregrounding elements of Conceptual Art, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism. The project introduces what she terms an "aporia" to the medium's picture signs found in traditional genres such as landscape, portrait, and still life, challenging fundamental questions about what constitutes art and photography.

The finitogram portfolio consists of small pictures that begin in conditions of amber low light, often in sight-less darkrooms where light-sensitive paper emerges from light-tight black bags and total darkness to begin its transformation journey. These works are inherently unpredictable, changing in subtle non-color to hue in palette and enlarging in form as the chemical clock ticks, unfolding from their once unfinished state through time and light to become completed finitograms.

As a 21st-century camera-less operator, Carey draws inspiration from photography pioneers William Henry Fox Talbot and Anna Atkins, consulting this "dual powerhouse of 19th-century game changers." Her work references Talbot's negative-to-positive duality of the photogram-as-image doubled, with soft-focus, non-color compositions in blurry outlines that capture light's shadow, while also incorporating elements from Anna Atkins' cyanotype images that represent light's first traces of color.

The chemically induced palette that emerges over time in Carey's finitograms whispers subtle abstract forms, featuring oxidized chemical sprays in pinks, crème de la crème, mottled grey with black - creating a cascade of images with an indefinable "je ne sais quoi." The CLO discovers performance within the black box of the darkroom, where pictures of nothing start blank and then finish through natural processes.

This innovative image-making process forms a conceptual link to the Surrealist game of exquisite corpse, representing a modern parlor game approach to creating new and unique photo-objects. Carey describes it as a game of hide-and-seek played through the unconscious - hiding the pictures, seeking them out, and sometimes doing nothing at all, letting time and light draw while allowing those marks to make themselves.

When light becomes visible, these objects speak their own language, conveying concepts of craquelure, pattern, shape, hue, abstraction, process, minimalism, and beauty. The series represents a contemporary approach to photography that embraces non-color, wonder, invention, and innovation, with each piece serving as what Carey calls a "black swan" - an unexpected and transformative discovery.

The finitogram artworks are created as unique chemigrams, with individual pieces measuring 10 inches high by 8 inches wide (unframed), while triptych arrangements span 10 inches high by 24 inches wide (unframed). This ambitious project, set for 2025, continues to expand the boundaries of what photography can be in the 21st century, offering viewers a fresh perspective on the medium's nearly two-century arc of light, photogram, and non-color exploration.