Seven weeks after she found herself in the midst of the Paris terrorist attacks, Auburn photographer Tanja Hollander is home.
“I took the rest of November and December off when I got back,” Hollander said. “I didn’t really want to leave Maine, or Auburn or my house, to be honest with you, for at least a week. You come back and you’re just sort of shell-shocked.”
She won’t stop traveling long. Next week, Hollander leaves for New York to continue her work as a photographer.
“You can’t live in fear,” she said.
Hollander was in Europe for a long-term project — crisscrossing the world to meet and document her Facebook friends. On Nov. 13, she was in Paris with New Hampshire journalist Jeff Sharlet so the pair could collaborate on other projects.
They were just sitting down to dinner when Sharlet got a text asking if he was OK. More texts poured in. Hollander discovered her own flood of worried messages.
A waiter told them attacks had occurred less than mile away.
“We started to realize the magnitude of what was going on,” Hollander said.
The pair went to find Sharlet’s student, another American who’d been at a local bar during the shootings. The trio tried getting to their flat, but a Frenchman stopped them and, unable to speak English, mimed that a man with a machine gun was loose in the area.
They took refuge in a closed bar, returning to their flat hours later. They spent the next few days writing about and photographing the grieving city.
“How do I document this in a way that’s real, that’s really what we’re feeling?” Hollander asked herself.
Sharlet has written about the experience for Esquire.com and on BookForum.com. He and Hollander have posted on SharletandHollander.com.
Hollander will add the Paris experience to her Facebook project, which will culminate with an art exhibit and book in 2017.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
