Alcatraz means Pelican
The first Spaniard to discover the island was Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775, who charted San Francisco Bay and named the island “La Isla de los Alcatraces,” which translates as “The Island of the Pelicans,” from the archaic Spanish alcatraz, “pelican”, a word which was borrowed originally from Arabic: al-qaṭrās, meaning sea eagle. Source

Picture Black Friday
You have from November 29th until December 6th to submit your photos for this photo-community event/competition. Picture Black Friday will feature the chosen images at Conscientious and

Sighting Prisons and Prison Sites
Aurora Detention Facility, Aurora, Colorado, Google Earth Screenshot POSITIONING PRISONS IN SPACE AND IN OUR MINDS One of the main stated goals of Prison Photography is to bring visual documents of prisons in America and abroa

40th Anniversary of the Alcatraz Indian Occupation: An Interview with Ilka Hartmann
Belva Cottier and a young Chicano man during the Occupation of Alcatraz Island, May 31, 1970. Photo: © 2009 Ilka Hartmann Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the start of the Indian Occupation of Alcatraz, an action that lasted over eighteen months until June 11th 1971. Photographic documents of the time are sur

Robert Gumpert’s “Take A Picture, Tell A Story”
A few months ago Bob Gumpert and I sat down and talked at length about the reasons why photographers should endeavour to tell the stories of social movements, workers rights, crime, justice and injustice. The conversation rolled and rolled which partly explains why the edited interview hasn’t surfaced yet. Bob’s acti