No one is born a criminal. Most of the people spending their lifetimes in a prison would have once lived successfully. Imagine the case of an educated professional with a wife and four children who is now in prison for 35 years as a result of one fatal mistake.
This, in fact, is what actually happened to a good friend of commercial photographer Trent Bell. It is known that some prison inmates have the courage to write letters to their past selves as if time travel were real and the letter could change the course of events.
The photographer heard about this and got inspired to create ‘Reflect Project’, a portrait series. According to Demilked, he asked 12 such convicts in the Maine prison to handwrite letters to their younger selves.
He then took raw portraits of them with their letters in the background to show the world what they had to say to themselves from before the incident. Bell told the website, “Our bad choices can contain untold loss, remorse and regret. But the positive value of these bad choices might be immeasurable if we can face them, admit to them, learn from them and find the strength to share.”
