New photo book turns lens on Angola inmates

With the Angola Prison Rodeo set to kick off Sunday, it’s an appropriate time to take a look at Lori Waselchuck’s new photography book featuring inmates of the state’s most notorious prison. “The early morning prison grounds are quiet, pocked only with the summer rain puddles. The gate swings open spitting out a long, low buzz. Ponytailed and spry, Waselchuk marches through carrying 50 copies of her new photo book, Grace Before Dying. She might as well be carrying a mirror,” writes Jeff Roedel in a 255 magazine feature story. “Gary Young, a spokesman for the Louisiana State Penitentiary, leads the former Baton Rouge photographer-turned-social-justice-crusader past a guard station, down a baby blue hallway and into the Hospice Chapel. Inside this humble oasis is a piano off to the side, a large pine cross on the wall and not a uniformed officer in sight. A few dozen inmates sit quietly in four rows of chairs opposite a small servery with iced tea and a large bin of sweet rolls. These are prisoner volunteers who provide bedside care for the terminally ill among Angola’s 5,000 inmates. They change bandages and diapers. They bring food to the hungry and water to the parched. They hold the hands of their dying friends and, in some cases, their enemies. They knit quilts to sell at the rodeo and pay for radios, books and TVs—anything for the comfort of the patients. These men are the subjects of Waselchuk’s book.” Read the full article here.