Picking Cotton at Angola

In September 2002, I spent an afternoon documenting inmates from the Louisiana State Penitentiary picking row upon row of cotton in the fields that surround the maximum security prison, known as ‘The Farm,’ in Angola, Louisiana. Using a couple of Leica M6 cameras and a pocketful of chrome film, I came away with a group of images, sad images mind you, that except for a walkie talkie and a pickup truck, look like they could have been made 100 years ago.