Customer Reviews

The Innocents

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"The Innocents" is a jarring photo documentation of the issues raised by the scores of false convictions which have been overturned, primarily as a result of DNA evidence. As with Barry Scheck's book, "Actual Innocence", one of the most disturbing conclusions is that there are many more falsely-convicted individuals who never will be cleared because their alleged crimes did not leave DNA evidence behind.

The pictures in this book put a human face to the exonerated. The simple, direct accompanying text and quotes from the former prisoners tell the story over and over. I highly recommend this book in conjunction with Actual Innocence which discusses the causes of false convictions and attempts to articulate solutions to this ongoing problem with our legal system (even though it is one of the best legal systems in the world).

There are emerging artists whose work tends to emphasize style over substance, of which there are many (Notable examples include Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY artist Anissa Mack, perhaps best known for her performance piece "Pies for a Passerby" and most, though not all, of the emerging artists represented in the recent Brooklyn Museum exhibition "Open House: Working in Brooklyn".). And then there are those who can produce stylishly beautiful work, and make profound statements about culture, society, etc. through their art. Fellow Brunonian Taryn Simon - she studied photography primarily at the Rhode Island School of Design, widely regarded as America's premier art school, while still an undergraduate at Brown - is unquestionably one of these, with a distinctive documentary style which harkens back to Walker Evans's sympathetic black and white photographic portrayals of people in Depression-era America. However, here Simon has worked deliberately in color, using the conventions of commercial fashion photography to create memorable images. Hers is a splendid, mature body of work, replete with much empathy for her subjects; former convicts who were falsely accused and convicted. Each photograph is accompanied with commentary from the two attorneys in charge of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. Through their Innocence Project, attorneys Scheck and Neufeld have freed scores of people who were wrongly convicted. Simon received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography for this project; an award normally given to artists who are in mid-career or further along, not to an emerging artist. Simon's work has been exhibited at New York City's International Center of Photography and P. S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; an international tour of these photographs had its first stop at P. S. 1. As both a fellow alumnus of her college and a fellow photographer, I eagerly look forward to yet another impressive body of work from Ms. Simon.

This book is phenomenal. Not only in its ironic ability to tell these tales, but for also revealing the clear errors that the judicial system cranks out. Anyone interested in those who are falsely convicted should check out www.wm3.org.

The failings of the criminal justice system and the use of the death penalty in this country are currently under close scrutiny and an important topic of public debate. The images and voices of The Innocents give faces and stories to the statistics and serve as a compelling documentation of a nationwide problem. Royalties for this book benefit the Innocence Project, New York, which has led the way in post-DNA exonerations in America.

Medium: Book
ISBN: 1-884167-18-7
Book Type: Hardcover with Jacket
Pages: 112 pages, 104 4-color illustrations
Size: 12.5 x 10 inches
Item #: 11430
Name: The Innocents
About this book...
This compelling book of photographs and interviews with the wrongfully convicted by Taryn Simon includes commentary and case profiles by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck. The failings of the criminal justice system and the use of the death penalty in this country are currently under close scrutiny and an important topic of public debate. The images and voices of The Innocents mark this historic turning point in America.

The Innocence Project, founded by leading civil rights attorneys Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, is responsible for most of the postconviction DNA exonerations in the United States today, many of which are included in this book. On the ten-year anniversary of its founding, the Project continues to free the innocent, striving to transform criminal justice into a more equitable and reliable system.

Photographer Taryn Simon brings us face-to-face with individuals falsely accused and convicted. While mugshots and photoarrays are used to condemn and imprison these innocents, Simon has turned the camera around to document these victims of mistaken identity and perverted justice. Simon photographed the wrongfully convicted at locations that were crucial in these legal cases: the scene of misindentification, the scene of arrest, the alibi location, or the scene of the crime. Through Simon's interviews with each, the men and women in this book confront the paradox of innocence and imprisonment, the inability to recover the years stolen from them, and the states' unconscionable refusal to compensate them or ease their traumatic transition to civilian life.

The subject is of course very tragic, but let's separate that from the photography, which is middle of the road color magazine sub Leibovitz portraiture. It feels like an extended NY Times magazine feature, which, no surprise, turns out it originally was.

The work is mostly over-editorialized images of these dreadfully wronged individuals, doing weird things that the photographer dreamed up. Standing in rooms with knives that they never held, or hiding under beds in rooms they never murdered anyone in. Why, oh why? Because the photographer wishes to make 'interesting' pictures for magazine viewers, and so ends up adding more false information to a situation that has already had catastrophic results from false information. Oh sorry: its a "play on the misleading nature of memory and seeing"? No thank you. There are plenty who like this kind of work, see other reviews here, but to me its superficial and distasteful in its use of these Innocents for a misdirected 'artistic' agenda.

This is my favorite photography book. You should get it - really! I thought it would be out-of-print for sure and was overjoyed to find it still available.
The Innocents project by Taryn Simon is one of the most interesting series of photography work around. Taking people whom have been wrongly accused of crimes back to sites relating to the crime and photographing them in it was a very clever idea. However the actual photographs are so intriguing without even knowing the ideas behind the project.
The images are spooky. Can a site or location contain ghosts? Simon's project makes me think so! Or at least the work shows a dark history of a location.
The accompanying text relating to each person's experience also contributes the reality of this issue.
I always show this book to my students as it is powerful and really make one think about a sense of place and the human condition.
Highly recommended.