I propose a 12-week road-trip across America meeting many of the leading photographers who, in the past 40 years, have documented the rise of the U.S. prison industrial complex. I’ll also be speaking with some of the leading practitioners in prison arts, prison education and advocacy.
This is a journalism project, the product of which is the approximately 40 interviews I will conduct. They’ll be made available, via Creative Commons license, to any and all in the photo and prison reform communities. In addition, my writings will be free to distribute with attribution to interested parties.
Fundraising begins today and continues for the next 36 days.
Please visit my Kickstarter page to read more about Why, Where, What and How.
INCENTIVES
This Kickstarter is a little different to others as I have secured many generous and talented photographers as collaborators who’ve put forth prints to help me raise money. Huge thanks to all of them.
In that there’s only one item for each of the incentive levels above $200, the thing operates like a “buy now”-priced auction.
The incentives at $10, $20, $50, $75 and $125 are self-explanatory.
On my Kickstarter page, the prints available between $200 and $1,000 have full descriptions. Those same descriptions and the currently available images are below.
Every supporter who buys a print more than $200 in value also gets a postcard, mixtape and self-published photobook Prison Photography in the Era of Mass Incarceration (56 pages).
ALL who donate – at any level – become official supporters and have their names listed on my website and in the acknowledgements of the self-published book.
Print PLUS a postcard, mixtape (CD) and a self-published book – $600 BUY NOW
FRANK MCMAINS
Photographer: Frank McMains
Title: Untitled #1, from ‘Angola Boxing’ series
Year: 2010
Size: 8″x12″
Print: B/W digital print on archival paper
Signed, uneditioned.
Print PLUS a postcard and a mixtape – $100. BUY NOW.
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STEVE DAVIS
Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #1, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.
Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.
Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #2, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.
Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.
Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #3, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.
Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.
Photographer: Steve Davis
Title: Untitled #4, from ‘Captured Youth’ series
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, heavyweight archival paper
Signed, special edition of 4.
Print PLUS a postcard, a mixtape and a self-published book – going for $300. BUY NOW.
Photographer: Richard Ross
Title: ’12-year old at Harrison County’
Year: 2009
Size: 9″x12″
Print: Color, Epson digital print on enhanced matt
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $1,000. BUY HERE
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BRUCE JACKSON
Photographer: Bruce Jackson
Title: ‘Dominoes. Death Row, Texas’
Year: 1979
Size: 12.5″x17″ on 13″x19″ paper
Print: B&W, Ilford Gallerie Gold Fibre Silk Paper.
Edition: #3 of an edition of 20
Signed
From Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian, “In this Timeless Time”: Living and Dying on Death Row in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2011)
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $800. BUY HERE
Photographer: Victor Blue
Title: ‘Closing a Wound, Mara 18’
Year: 2005
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color, archival print
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $200. BUY HERE
Photographer: Lori Waselchuk
Title: ‘Prison Guard Watches from the Levee, Angola Prison’
Year: 2007
Size: 12″ X 24″
Print: B&W, archival pigment print
Edition: #2 of an edition of 15
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $400. BUY HERE
Photographer: Lori Waselchuk
Title: ‘Lloyd Bone Drives the Funeral Hearse’
Year: 2007
Size: 7″ x 14″
Print: B&W, archival pigment print
Edition: #7 of an edition of 25
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape. SOLD
Photographer: Jan Sturmann
Title: ‘Juvenile Prison Sweat Lodge’
Year: 2005
Size: 8″x10″
Print: Color, archival inkjet print
Not editioned
Signed
$50
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ARA OSHAGAN
Photographer: Ara Oshagan
Title: ‘Liz, 21 years old, Chowchilla State Prison, CA, 2003’
Year: 2003
Size: 30″x8″
Print: Color and B&W, archival pigment ink print (Giclee)
Edition #2 of 10
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $400. BUY HERE
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STEPHEN TOURLENTES
Photographer: Stephen Tourlentes
Title: Comstock, NY State Prison
Year: 2009
Print: 11″x14″ B&W, Archival Pigment Print
Aritist’s Proof, Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $500 – BUY NOW
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SYE WILLIAMS
Photographer: Sye Williams
Title: ‘The Four’
Year: 2001
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color
1st edition 2/25
Signed
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $900. BUY HERE
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ADAM AMENGUAL
Photographer: Adam Amengual
Title: ‘Adrien Caceres’ from the “Homies” series
Year: 2011
Size: 11″x14″
Print: Color, archival inkjet print
Edition #2 of 10
Signed Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $750. BUY HERE
Photographer: Jenn Ackerman
Title: ‘A Hand to Hold’ (2008) from the series, Trapped.
Print: 11×14. B&W, archival matte.
Edition: #2 of an edition of 25.
Signed.
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $600.BUY HERE
Photographer: Tim Gruber
Title: ‘Sunset Behind Bars’
Year: 2008
Print: 14×11″ B&W, archival pigment print on matte paper.
Edition: #1 of an edition of 25.
Signed.
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $500.BUY HERE
MAX WHITTAKER
Any photo from Max Whittaker‘s archive, signed and printed at 11″x17″.
Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $200. BUY HERE
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ADAM SHEMPER
Photographer: Adam Shemper
Title: ‘In the Wheat Fields, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana’
Year: 2000
Print: 9″x9″. B&W on archival paper
Signed Print PLUS, self-published book, postcard and mixtape = $325. BUY HERE
Please forward the link to this page and my Kickstarter page to anybody whom you think may be interested in the project and potentially donating. Cheers!
Here’s a YouTube version of my Kickstarter pitch for those of you who can’t embed from any other video sites (don’t worry the WordPress video upgrade is on its way)
Michael Shaw has been conscientiously restructuring BagNewsNotes over the past six months or so. Here’s how he describes the rebranded Bag:
• An almost hypnotizing archive featuring hundreds of ways to sort through our over 3000 image posts.
• A dedicated photojournalism section, BagNewsOriginals, steered by long-time BNN contributor, Alan Chin with a powerful lineup showcasing BAG’s distinguished contributor, Nina Berman, fresh off her Whitney Biennial success; World Press and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Suau on the economy; and much, much more.
• A Salon section managed by the talented photographer and multimedia producer, Sandra Roa, formerly of the NYT Lens Blog, mixing audio slideshows and live chats, all focusing on key images of the day. We kick off on Wednesday with an audio slide show featuring Ashley Gilbertson’s look at the bedroom shrines of fallen US soldiers.
• Our mainstay news image analysis by BAG publisher Michael Shaw, with new contributors, including: acclaimed photojournalist Chris Hondros conducting exclusive interviews; leading visual academics Bob Hariman and John Lucaites deconstructing visual culture; and former White House photographer, Stephen Ferry, on media’s pictorial stereotyping of the third world.
The Bag is the most persistent contributor to this ongoing analysis. The importance of the Bag’s ever critical eye cannot be underestimated in a world that sinks deeper into the swell of images every day.
The new look by designer Naz Hamid of Weightshift is super navigable and I think it is funny (humorous) that the Bag has made use of the same font used by the New York Times’ arts and media blogs.
The font choice is a cheeky nod to the subtle echoes of form and type that run through our daily visual experiences! It’s as if the Bag is testing its own hypothesis from within the permanent elements of its own visual architecture. That, and it doesn’t hurt to have subliminal associations with the Grey Lady!
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MY CONTRIBUTION?
Last year, Shaw contacted me and at the same time as describing Bag’s sweeping changes asked me if I’d come on-board as a contributor.
Writings on US prisons here on Prison Photography will be cross-posted to the Bag in order to bring images and issues of America’s prison industrial complex to a wider audience.
I’ve a got a couple of posts coming up this week so stay alert for those and for all that the Bag offers consequently.
If you search “Prison Photography” on Twitter you’ll get nowt back. That’s because I use an inverted version of my pseudo-faux-baptismal avatar, brookpete.
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