Taryn Simon - The Innocents.

I came across Taryn Simon and her series The Innocents through the OCA Facebook page. I was particularly interested as she makes you question how accurately photography represents the truth.

All of the people in the pictures had been sentenced to prison for crimes that they had not committed. Simon has photographed them at the scenes of the alleged crimes, where they were identified, arrested or at the scene of the alibi.

Photography has been used as evidence to convict someone of committing a crime throughout history and here this has been challenged. Just because there is a photo of someone at the scene of a crime does not mean that they committed it! By photographing the accused at the scenes of the crimes Simon "confronts photography's ability to blur truth and fiction - an ambiguity that can have severe, even lethal consequences.

Looking at these images, without knowing the story behind them, I rather like the simplicity of the look of some of the photos as well as the composition. The concept of the whole shoot really interests me and makes me wonder how someone could come up with such an idea. I also wonder whether it was had to get the subjects of the shoots to participate? How high profile were their cases? Where the general public very aware of who they were? If so, did they take this opportunity to prove a point of their innocence?


Info from:
OCA Facebook page
 http://tarynsimon.com/works_innocents.php