Quiet Desperation

The people who end up in prison have very sad lives to begin with - it a shame that their surroundings must be so austere and sad as well. This is a creepy yet poignant photo. Makes you wonder about the people who spent time here. Well done!

Jan, Thanks for the thoughtful comment. The prison was quite beaten down, and I'm sure that the psychological punishment of living in such drab surroundings was overwhelming. I was struck by the contrast between the inside of the prison and the fantastic view of San Francisco from the outside. What torture this must have been to spend the rest of one's life here.

A very nice shot, Jeff!

This is a prison cell at Alcatraz, where men would spend the rest of

their lives. An unbearable thought. Comments and suggestions

welcome.

very good..congrats.

Hi Jeff. Interesting post-processing that makes the picture looks even more gritty. Good job! I certainly wouldn't like to spend a single day there, not my whole life...

Interestingly descriptive and perfectly composed.

Great sense of the space. You've told a moving story here and helped us feel the confinement. Of course, it would be incredible to have one of the inhabitants in the room, but I assume that was not possible.

Fred, Unfortunately he escaped just before I snapped the shutter.

Hope he didn't catch a cold swimming in that frigid water. Jeff, you captured the feeling of despair and isolation masterfully in this picture. As bleak as this looks, I believe that imprisonment in the mental and emotional sense is worse than the physical one.

My compliments, Jeff, in this described image, you really captured the sense of desperation! Regards, Maury

mmh what a strange idea to put th epillow on that side of the bed, must not be that great to sleep the nose so close to the toilets!.. mh ok joke aside, this is a striking and very interesting documentary type of picture. The special effects dont completely work for me but still it brings some awkwardness to the scene and a feeling of discomfort. good composition and original subject, good to see this kind of picture

Jeff, you continue to do great work, keep it up. This reminds of another one of picture, waiting for parole, they would work well together.

It's sad, but real, well done :)

You have captured the sense of utter despair and confinement here. Post processing adds to this , superb work.

since i've seen the movie (the escape....) i want to go there. but what a desolate place it has become by now. if finally gets everything back.

I keep returning to your Alcatraz portfolio. There's something arresting and at the same time repulsive about them. Perhaps, this is because I'm a lawyer and spend a lot of my free time visiting incarcerated people. Maybe, it is because I have spent a day in jail myself--really 18 hours--over some trespass charge in Kentucky years ago. There's something about the whole experience that strips away layers of your humanity, from the having to surrender your digits to the manipulation of the figerprint guy, to the giving up your belt and wallet, so you feel naked, to being housed in a basement with no outside light, and feeling disoriented when you leave, to the shame and stigma, the guilt you feel in dragging the family name through muck. All these are punishments by themselves.

 

I could never imagine spending more than a day there, let alone a week, let alone a lifetime. The depression alone would atone for any sin you have ever committed here on earth. I have a theory that lifers will all end up in heaven for suffering as much as they did here on earth, and WE are the ones who will have to answer for putting a fellow human being through that.

I'm actually a forensic psychologist who does evaluations for defendants preparing for trial. So, like you, I spend my days visiting jails and prisons, occasionally being shuttled back into the dark places where no one goes. Some facilities are humane, and I think the inmates respond in kind. Other places are unimaginable. I took these shots before I started forensic work several years back, and looking at them now, I find them quite troubling.

A riveting image. I've been on both sides of a cell door in my lifetime (only once for twelve hours as a prisoner) and I've had the opportunity to visit a number of state prisons in California, in the 70's when I was a probation officer. There is a vast difference between just looking at a scene like this as a tourist, as opposed to knowing you were going to spend the rest of your life in one, without the least control over anything you do. I've really got to hand it to you here for the way you have processed the image to convey the drab graininess of such an existence. It's got a wonderful mood to it Jeff. Stark and dreary and without hope.

You're right. Peering in for a second to snap a photo doesn't even give an inkling of what it's like to consider this hole home. As an aside, I recovered this from a horribly grainy RAW file taken with no flash in existing light, hence all the grain. Typically, such an approach would've ruined the shot, but in this case, I think it accentuated the sad feel. Thanks for spelunking in my portfolio.