Reblogged
“One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana” (1998–2002) by Deborah Luster, this series of photos were captured in three different Louisiana state prisons. Luster spent six years to produce an archive of formal inmate portraits, printed using silver gelatin emulsion on metal plates.
can’t find anything that provides much more detail about the medium choice except that it’s ‘reminiscent of 19th-century photos’ but it absolutely has to be intentionally evoking portraits of slaves. the whole collection is stored in this cabinet as a part of the piece:
which looks a hell of a lot like a reference to historical archives. where you might find old photos of slaves.
