Robert Gumperton Prison Inmates Tattoo Photos

Posted on 01. Aug, 2010 by AllPurpose in Art

Photojournalist Robert Gumperton builds exquisitely constructed black and white windows into worlds most Americans are never going to see. Maybe because they’d never dare to go to the dark places he does or because when people do enter the worlds he walks through they keep their head low and eyes to themselves. Robert on the other had keeps his camera up and eyes open to the story he’s trying to tell. His multi-media piece on American Prison Tattoos in Foto 8 is recognizable as being shot from with in the Northern California Prison System which has a rich history of tattooing and as an incubator of some of the United States’ largest and notorious gangs. Here are a few pieces.