A little bit of storytime here:

Going back through the archives, one of my most interesting shoots was photographing Bobby Beausoleil, a member of the Manson Family, in maximum security prison. There is an earlier post about this here.

When the prison doors close, it’s hard sound like you’ve never experienced. Walking the line for real was nothing like the Johnny Cash song.

I was ready with a tightly packed camera bag.

I took 3 cameras with me to the shoot: Nikon F3, Nikon FM, and a Nikon F which was my insurance. As a fully manual, non-metered film camera, this would always be my go-to. You could hammer nails with it all day, and it would still shoot straight, as the expression goes.

Plus a changing bag, a Vivitar 283 flash with batteries, and plenty of Kodak Tri-X, and Ektachrome.

I asked Bobby to tell me his side of the story, while photographing him for this assignment. Yes, I had a guard and a social worker with me at all times.

Hearing the details of a murder was chilling, and photographing the person who committed that murder was another level.

In this video, I briefly go over some of the details, including the basics of how i got the assignment.

If you would like more details of this shoot,  you can find those here.

More stories in the archives.