Good friend Bob Gumpert will be showing his portraiture from the San Francisco and San Bruno county jails at HOST gallery in London in April of next year.

From Bob’s email this week:

As many of you know I’ve been working since 2006 on the “Take A Picture, Tell A Story” project in the San Francisco County jails. The project continues.  I go into the jails about three times a month and post to takeapicturetellastory.com as time and stories allow.

The show will host forums on criminal justice by a number of groups. To make the show and outreach happen we need your help with the following:

1)     Referrals with groups/individuals in the UK working in the criminal justice field.
2)    Names at US based groups/individuals that might be traveling to England during the exhibit who could speak on the US system.
3)    Forwarding this note and flyer to your any of your contacts that might be able to help with contacts or might be able to help with funding by purchasing a print.

Obviously, I have a wild bias in seeing work such as Bob’s getting a wide audience.

Yet, photography from prisons/jails tests the theory that photography shows and delivers stories we otherwise would not see. Bob’s portraits and audio gives voice to the marginalised. Whatever the reasons for their incarceration, no one deserves to be made invisible. Bob’s work empowers his subjects and reveals the limitations of our criminal justice systems.

So, friends stateside and over there in Blighty, get your thinking caps on and see if you can help spread the word and find him some allies (and cash?)