20 years of prison polaroids chart son’s resolve
In publishing his family photos, Davi Russo aims to help others impacted by incarceration
Some polaroids have the date on the back, others don’t. Hairstyles, fashions, glasses, and facial hair were dead giveaways for Davi Russo and his family as they pored over nearly 400 photos trying to pinpoint the year of each. At first glance, the collection looks like any other family photo album, but a closer look—at the floor tiles, at the fanciful murals, and at Russo’s father’s beige clothes—might let on that all these portraits were made inside prison.
“You see two kids going through adolescence. You see a husband and wife go through their thirties and forties. You see grandparents who don’t show up anymore. You see friends that show up once or twice,” says Russo, 39, a New York-based director and photographer, whose series Picture Time traces his family’s prison visits between 1987 and 2007.
Russo’s father, David, was incarcerated on suspicion of murder in 1984, stood trial, was found guilty and sentenced, in 1987, to life plus 20 years. He has been eligible for parole since 2010 but remains in prison today.
Russo was nine years old at the time of his father’s conviction. The three decades since have been a long journey of coming to terms.
“My dad did something heinous and my entire life has been getting that information translated in different ways,” says Russo, who despite everything has maintained a strong relationship with his father. “In a weird way, I’m probably one of the lucky ones. I know what it’s like to grow up with an incarcerated parent and, in a sense, I can appreciate that there are some who may have had it worse.”
Indeed, the prison experience will strain and sometimes tear familial bonds apart. Prison visitation, therefore, is key for loved ones to stay connected. One of the most common experiences in the visiting room is having your photograph made together.
“It is the only normal time in an abnormal place,” says Russo. “My mother would clutch onto those four pictures when we left. The polaroids would go up on the refrigerator or on the nightstand.”
With 2.3 million people behind bars on any given day, and 13 million cycled through U.S. prisons and jails each year, one can conservatively estimate that there are tens of millions of prison pictures like Russo’s. The prison visiting room portrait is a significant genre of American vernacular photography.
Russo only decided to share his family photos because he felt popular culture got prisons wrong. Only those who’d experienced prison understood. Maybe his family’s story could help outsiders understand?
“Growing up with Shawshank Redemption and all the horrible prison TV shows, I wanted to take authorship,” explains Russo. “I had a chance to put something different together. And it was legitimate. Polaroids are thought of as the most fun type of photography. Super quick, on the beach, snap, shake it. The world is perfect! Shoot it on polaroid! But not for me. I didn’t experience polaroids that way and I knew I wasn’t the only one.”
Today, according to Pew Research, there are 2.7 million minor children who have an incarcerated parent. That’s one in 28 American children. In 1985, just after Russo’s dad went inside, the number was one in 125. There isn’t much help or sympathy for kids of prisoners, but recent consensus about the shortcomings of mass incarceration has spurred more public conversation. In 2013, Sesame Street launched a new toolkit about incarceration to help children with their emotions and communication around the issue.
While Russo never felt held back by his family history, he never advertised his father’s crime either. He worried if word got out his career might be damaged somehow. Such is the logic of someone burdened by shame. He worked hard, but was always unsettled by the “ingrained secret” about such a huge part of his life. Then, in his late twenties, Russo had the opportunity to work on a TV series about a prisoner filmmaking program in San Quentin State Prison. He spent three months going in and out of the maximum security prison. The personal and the professional collided.
“Taking images inside, meeting with incarcerated individuals, I had a lot of conversations with prisoners about myself before even picking up the camera.”
His father gave him a lot of advice and support. Soon after, Russo edited the snaps, printed a book dummy, sent it to his dad and asked for some writing in response. Russo thought he’d get a 30-page typed letter in return but instead his dad stuck Post-it notes on each photo. Russo stared at the new 20-year narrative.
“I was floored. I got an insight into my father’s world, his sentiments from when the photos were made.”
He had his captions. It felt good.
“The fishing trip was never going to happen, but here we were making something together.”
Inevitably, the New Jersey Department of Corrections replaced polaroids with digital in 2009. Russo was saddened by the phase-out. Polaroids are a distinguishing feature of his formative teenage years and early adulthood. He dedicates Picture Time to all prison photographers.
“We knew the photographers by name,” says Russo. “One of the greats was a man nicknamed New York. He was a beautiful, middle aged, Latino man. New York would line us up, pose us, tell us where to stand. He’d make us look beautiful. He allowed us that moment to be normal. He told us to smile. He let us know it was okay. It was almost like going to a witch doctor. I felt love. This guy had a job and he took it seriously. He found purpose he was perhaps robbed of. Every prison must have a New York?!”
No society in the history of humankind has incarcerated such a large proportion of its citizenry during peacetime. While these photos belong to the Russo family, they also reveal a clear and present facet of the contemporary United States.
“There are millions of men and women locked up,” says Russo, “and they’re all still trying to figure out how to be family.”
