tattoos
Skin Deep: Looking Beyond the Tattoos is a book you absorb through your eyes and into your heart. This 176-page coffee table book is a thoughtful catalog of stunning photographs of formerly incarcerated people and their self-disclosures about their tattoos. Twenty-seven people are presented in two striking visuals: heavily tattooed and digitally retouched without their prison ink.… Read the rest
I ended my previous blog, Et Tu Tattoo, with questions that caused us to look at prison tattooing in different ways.
- Tattooing is forbidden in California prisons (and other systems), so why are prison tattoos so prevalent?
- What does a tattoo artist need to set up shop inside a prison?
This blog post focuses on the work of photographer Steven Burton, whose photographs capture the results of digitally removing ink from heavily tattooed skin. I find the photos compelling. If you’re like me, your eyes will dart back and forth between the pictures.
Prison tattoos (tats or ink) are complicated works of art.… Read the rest