Pete Brook, author of the important blog Prison Photography, is taking his work on the road.
Pete will be interviewing three dozen photographers who have documented the rise of America’s prison industrial complex. He also will be talking with leading practitioners in prison arts, prison education, law and advocacy. All content will be made available free of charge, via Creative Commons, to the photo and prison reform communities.
You can read more about the project here. You also can donate to help cover costs. (I don’t think Fox News is going to bankroll this one.) Donors also can pick up some serious prints. Pete is going the extra mile here; I hope some of the NCN readership can lend him a hand.
Photograph by Bruce Jackson.
I rceently saw a 1949-era movie with Dana Andrews that had a shot like this, only the prisoners on death row mwere playing checkers, as I recall.
I just got back from spending a few days at the Magnum Photo archive at UTexas. In the “prisons” boxes, there are several photos of prisoners playing cards or chess through the bars. Cornell Capa took one of them at Attica, and others may have been in the Danny Lyons series on American prisons. The movie antedates all of them, but I have no clue whether there was any influence, or whether other photos antedate the movie.