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Looking Inside

Sara Bennett
Kehrer Verlag
ISBN 978-3-96900-238-4
216 x 274 mm

Bennett, a former public defender, spent thirteen years photographing women convicted of homicide and serving life sentences in New York State. The book traces their lives inside prison walls, in their post-incarceration bedrooms, and as they re-enter the world after decades away, combining portraits with personal ephemera — Polaroids, letters, drawings and handwritten notes. It also includes pictorial endnotes by Bennett. Portraits are captioned with each woman’s age, facility, sentence, time served and release date. With an afterword by Judith Clark.

Excerpt from a review published on allaboutphoto.com: ‘Its prison-like cardboard cover works almost like a barrier: through a small window, we catch only a fragment of a women, as if she is held captive by what we are allowed to see — and what we assume. When the book opens the narrow view unfolds into a full portrait, a simple but effective visual reminder that first impressions are partial and often unfair. What follows is even more disorienting. Transparent sheets introduce children’s stuffed animals — a frog, a teddy bear, a snowman — small delicate images that seem to soften the atmosphere before the tone shifts again into a stark line of text: “I am not unlike u. Yet, no one saw my potential. Unlike u I deemed unworthy, unredeemable at the age of 21 and given a 50 to life sentence.” The abruptness of that statement changes the mood immediately. It gives the book its emotional charge and makes clear that Bennett is not simply showing incarceration’