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Bob Shell: Heidi

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Bob Shell

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……….I’m enclosing a recent photo of me. Not for its artistic value, which is nil, but because I had to explain to the man who takes the pictures here how to set the camera. It was a little Kodak point and shoot digital with minimal features, but with the ability to make some basic settings. As I was holding the camera and showing him how to set it so the flash would fire and he would not get ghastly green, heavily shadowed photos under the fluorescent lights here, it suddenly hit me: This is the first camera of any sort that I have had in my hands in four and a half years! That thought brought tears to my eyes, and does again as I write this. Photography was my life, and it is an obscene form of mental torture to deprive me of it. I think that bothers me more than anything else about what was done to me by the system.

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Bob Shell: Pocahontas State Correctional Center, 11-11-2011

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Gina Cotter

About The Photographer: Gina Cotter is enrolled in the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. Class of 2012.

Occupy Philadelphia

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Kaitlyn Levesque

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……….I feel as if I’ve been following the Occupy movement as intensively as the average American, which is to say I hear about it and read the occasional article on various occupy happenings but couldn’t concisely tell you what the movement is about or what their demands are. And upon consideration, I’m really not sure if anyone can give a concise answer to those questions, because to the best of my understanding the movement has grown so fiercely that each individual person brings new grievances to the table and is unitedly taking an individual stance against whatever they think is wrong. All of this being said the Occupy movement is starting to falter in momentum. Numbers have thinned, coverage has lessened, and the latest news is focusing more on the misdoings of police officers than the goals and progress of the movement itself.

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Occupy Philadelphia

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I wandered into City Hall, the home base of the Occupy Philadelphia movement on a Sunday afternoon and found the whole scene rather anticlimactic and sorely disappointing. It was past noon and yet barely a dozen people were moving about; the tent city that had been erected weeks prior looked filthy and deserted. I walked, I observed, I read, I listened, and I ultimately documented. The movement is fading; they lacked organization and respect. There are still some people genuinely concerned and invested in this movement, but for every legitimate occupier there seemed to be someone who was just bumming along for the ride.

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Occupy Philadelphia

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Occupy Philadelphia

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This what I wanted to illustrate, the diminishing voice of the movement, the genuinely concerned citizens with a message to deliver barely seeming to keep their voice a float in an overwhelming sea of an off putting and massive mess. The signs shows a message trying to be delivered, but they are surrounded by filth and little else, for the signs now outnumber the people who are still valid members of the movement.

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Occupy Philadelphia

About The Author: Kaitlyn Levesque is a sophomore enrolled in the College of the University of Pennsylvania. Class of 2014 – Copyright 2011

Fay Fussell: Camden, New Jersey 2011

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Fay Fussell

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I grew up in the City of Camden which at one time was a vibrant, bustling town; I would see men returning to their homes after their shifts were over at the factory or shipyard, their tin lunch buckets swinging and happy smiles on their faces especially after a side stop at Bruten bar.

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Witnessing a city sliding into decline is emotional and sad to watch. It is especially sad when there seems to be no help for the city or its people. The death of Camden has been to me like the loss of a friend.

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Fay Fussell: Camden, New Jersey 2011

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All though I am not a soap box kind of person I still feel deeply about the inner city blight that has not only affected Camden but happens to be the plight of many, many cities across the nation. I find that through photography I can give testimony and reveal the sadness inside of me, probe my deepest emotions and at the same time make a social statement. Pictures are more convincing than any statement I could vocalize from a soap box, for there is nothing more articulate than what is captured through the lens of a camera. The human element has not been able to manipulate or change things around once the film has captured the scene. The images are there, no pointing of fingers, no right or wrong just the bare facts of stark silent reality.

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The structures in the assignment were chosen because they were part of memories that took me back to a free none threatening past. Also the buildings were chosen because they fascinated me in their deterioration, in their yawning desperation of broken windows and crumbling exteriors along with the scream of hopelessness that seem to generate from their skeletons. In selecting the buildings I wanted my peers to see and perhaps feel empathy for the death of a city.

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For this series I also found relief from the depression of disintegrating buildings, inner city blight and poverty by investigating other areas in Camden city and Philadelphia. The places were free from the invading poverty and chaos and created areas of peace in pockets of the cities.

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With a new interest in Photography I also found myself more comfortable and confident handling the camera and viewed it as an instrument that was able to articulate what I was unable to. I find I also am beginning to frame in my mind shots that I would never have seen or even thought of and arranging them in my mind as the framework for possible images on film.

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Fay Fussell: Camden, New Jersey 2011

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I am not writing to say I have had a sudden epiphany as a photographer and am able to verbalize in many words about the intricacies of the scenes, but to say that there has been a shift in my thinking about the imagery in Photography. Because of my shift in thinking, I have the desire to continue to learn and improve my skill in this art.

About The Author: Fay Fussell: “that as a person born and raised in Camden and now living in another town, the memory of Camden’s better days are forever embedded in my mind.” Copyright 2011

A.H. Scott

Posted on November 17, 2011 by A.H. Scott

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………..I couldn’t resist sending in this poem. It’s not sexy, but it’s definitely political. I was inspired to write it after the ouster of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park in New York City. Something that isn’t broadly mentioned in the media, is the fact that Diana Taylor, who is on the board of directors for the company that owns Zuccotti Park (Brookfield Properties), is the girlfriend of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It got me to thinking about the power of connections and associations. Brookfield Properties were the ones who sent a letter to the Mayor’s office to get the protesters evicted in a post-Midnight raid. Now, coincidence is something I believe in. Yet, this action by the NYPD didn’t just come about out of thin air.

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So, this poem is titled, “PILLOW TALK SCREWS THE 99%”. I think the title explains it all. The games the rich and influential play are like puppet-masters to the marionettes of the masses.

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Lolly was a lobbyist who did her job well
Her bank account always filled to a swell
Loopholes written by others she slid through with ease
To all of her clients, she did what she had to do to please
Paul was a politician with a Pepsodent smile
He relished his position of snorting at the public well
No one would say he was a pig
Yet, his coffers of donations continued to get big
Bart was a banker who knew all the right palms to grease
This even brought lovely Lolly to her knees
Bedfellows and bed-gals do the Potomac Mambo between the sheets and lines of morality
Those who have access to the three sides of this twisted triangle, bare a leg and a wad of green
Lolly, Paul and Bart lived for an ultimate turn of the trick
For the ones who they adored screwing the most were
Jane Q. Citizen & John Q. Public
Pillow talk screws the 99%, again and again…..

About The Author: Draped in freedom’s spirit, A.H. Scott is a sizzling scribe of unveiling sensuality. Residing in New York City, this writer is armed with pouting pen of passion and pulsating digits pounding against keyboard. Between this lady’s manicured fingers, a snaggy stylus lacerates parchment and masticates digits against a misting keyboard towards a just climax literary longing. She’s a new voice and vision of fiction. who has been writing short stories and poetry ever since childhood.

Obsessions

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Bob Shell

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Letters From Prison

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Obsessions

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Obsessions

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Obsessions

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Letters From Prison

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Obsessions

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.