Tim Gruber and Jenn Ackerman use both photography and video to tell stories for editorial and commercial clients. 
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I was happy to receive an email in my inbox earlier this summer from the Magenta Flash Forward competition letting me know that I was chosen as an honorable mention for one of their 2010 Emerging Photographers for my Served Out: Aging and Dying Behind Bars project. There’s some great talent on the winners page of their site. Congrats to all the winners.
A trailer of the video portion of the project was also screened for the first time at the LOOKbetween festival we blogged about earlier. I’ll try to have that up to share with you all soon.
A few outtakes from the project. See more at the Served Out: Aging and Dying Behind Bars section on our website.
Mr. Gibson was one of my favorite inmates from this past summer. Mr. Gibson was more than a subject he was and still is my friend. He’d be one of the first guys I’d go greet everyday I’d go to the prison. “Why hello there camera man.” or “Take my picture camera man,” were greetings he’d have waiting for me every time he saw me. I miss the man. I need to call him tomorrow and see how he’s doing.
One of my last days in KY I went to pay Mr. Gibson, who is now a free man, a visit. He was tickled silly that I’d make the three hour drive to see him. We mainly spent the day sitting on the swing you see in the picture below talking. I probably should have taken more pictures, but my heart told me I’d cherish the conversation more than any photos I’d take and I did.
Mr. Gibson, walking in his backyard for the first time in 5 years as a free man.
Monday I spoke at the National Security Conference to officers and wardens around the country about mental illness in prison and what it was like to film the project. It was a little intimidating as I was speaking to a room of experts but I am hoping I brought a different perspective.
It was great — it is interesting watching your film with people who have never seen it and to respond to questions from nonphotographers. Two officers from the Kentucky State Reformatory sat in on my presentation and gave their perspective as to what it was like to have a photographer in that unit all summer.
We filmed the presentation and hope to have a portion of that online soon.
Thank you all for listening and for your great feedback. Please email me if you have any other questions.
Yesterday was the last day Tim and I spent in the prison and it was bittersweet. This summer was incredibly intense as we tried to spend as much time as we could there but I also enjoyed every day there.
I am also going to miss the guys. I have to admit there are some guys I am so glad I have photos of — not only for my project but so I can remember their smile.
I am hoping that the documentary on mental illness can be produced by the end of next summer. I have tried to be diligent and capture my video as I go but I still have about 30 hours ahead of me. As you can tell, we have a lot of tapes between the two projects.
Yesterday marked the last day of our documentary at the prison. I’m not sure what to make of the whole experience as I don’t think my feelings about the project, people, and the place have really settled.
There’s something about the place, but mostly the people that gets in your system. Like they say if you miss a day you miss a lot. I joke with Jenn that if this whole photography thing doesn’t work out I now have something to fall back on in corrections.(With the state of our business that might not be much of a joke.)
As incredible freeing as it is to work on a personal project it was also incredibly taxing moreso than anything I’ve done photographically in my life. At times I would have done anything to have a mindless portrait assignment rather than face the ups and downs of this project. I guess what it boils down to is personal work is for you and your subjects there’s nobody getting in-between that. No editors, no newsroom politics, nothing. It’s just you and your work and when you are your toughest critic that can be a hard thing to live with.
There’s still a ton of work left to do with this project, but for now though I’m looking forward to spending a few days relaxing and letting my mind wander.
Our pile of video footage from this summer. If anyone wants to log and transcribe a pile of tapes please let me know. 
I am finishing up my time in the prison. In fact I only have three days left and I am going to miss this place tremendously. I am going to miss the environment but mostly the guys I see everyday.
I have been spending most of my time shooting video but always have my still camera with me.
Here is an image I took today that I thought spoke to the idea of freedom and being trapped both in your mind and in the system.
I’m sure every photographer knows this feeling, but today I hate my work. Yesterday I may have liked it, but it doesn’t matter much because today I hate it.
As the summer has progressed I’ve felt like I’ve been riding an emotional elevator when it comes to dealing with our prison project.
Some days I’m proud of the work I see hanging on our walls from the prison and other days I hate every single image up there. I guess it also boils down to the idea of feeling a lot of pressure to make sure we don’t let anyone down with this project.
The simple fact is this is the most time I’ve ever spent working on a project and probably the most time I’ll ever spend on a project non-stop like this. Short of moving into the prison, which Jenn and I actually thought of doing. We have lived and breathed this project daily and sometimes with “toxic” results to our sanity. Time off is a wonderful and needed thing.
The warden retires in less than a week and I want nothing more than this piece to be a thoughtful thank you to a man that has instilled in us so much faith and confidence. For us to walk freely inside an institution like this and doing it with cameras tells you the level of trust and confidence this man has in us. The staff, inmates, and frankly sometimes I find it amazing.
Now with only days left in the prison I’m hopeful that in six months, a year, ten years, or however long it takes us to produce this piece that it will all be worth it. Not for our sake cause it’s already been worth it, but for the sake of everyone who has made this summer possible.
People visting our home might find it a little strange to find our walls
cluttered with photos from our project, but it serves as a nice way to know
what we’ve shoot and what we still need to work on. This is our project road map
from much earlier in the summer.
Here’s some recent work from the month of August.
August has been spent trying to keep my eye fresh and not burn myself out as I near the end of our prison project. I’ve been blessed in the last few weeks of working at the prison to make some decent strides and am going to miss the place as we pick up and move to Dallas in a month.
Although most days I look at the walls of prison photos we have hanging here and struggle with what I see, but so goes the nature of working on a long-term project.
These images though are all outside the prison walls and a creative release in an effort to keep my senses heightened.
Check out the photos on the Recent Work section of my website. Thanks for looking.
When I started the project on mental illness in prison, I was hoping that a lot of people outside of the photo world would have the opportunity to see it.
Although it has only been published on my website at this point, I am seeing how something can go “viral”. When the project first launched at the end of March, I had a lot of hits from the photo community and while I was happy to see that other photographers were looking at the project, the site is now circulating the mental health and news blogospheres.
Thanks to the Internet, other people have done a great job of marketing this project. It really is amazing how one blog will post a link and then another blogger will link to it and so on. And while some sites I am sure are seeing hundreds of thousands of hits on a project, I am pretty happy that now more than 35,000 people have seen my project.
So thank you to those bloggers who are helping to spread this project around and to those visitors who are kind enough to respond to the piece.
Thanks to The Guardian for including the Trapped project as best of the web. And to all the visitors from The Guardian and all of your emails. Thanks for all your questions and words of support.
Here is a post from earlier this year that addressed most of your questions.