I went to prison today.

Apparently, Hutchinson doesn't just have one prison, it has three: minimum, medium, and maximum securities. I got to go to the maximum one today! To take pictures of inmates working for a company called Hubco, a company that makes bags. Bags. Like, canvas bags and other kinds of cloth bags. Inmates have the opportunity to work for the company sewing and inspecting the bags and packaging them for shipment.


This guy up here is some kind of head security guy. We also were accompanied by the warden and the CEO of Hubco. I had to pass through metal detectors and have one run over me and security took my driver's license and gave me a visitor's badge. Lots of convicts made comments about my cameras, but the security guy said there were only 2 inmates I was allowed to photograph, 2 of the guys working at the Hubco place. They had to have them approved by the state, I guess.This is Samuel Minor. He's been in Hutchinson Correctional for 29 years. He's 50 years old. He was inspecting thousands of small cloth bags and packing them into boxes (5000 per box). He said he was out at 25 years on parole but he violated it and came back. I can't imagine being 21 years old and entering prison in 1978 and not coming out for 30 years.


This is Rick Beck. He's been in for 25 years and he comes out next month. He's 51. He was doing the same thing as Samuel. Inspecting and boxing bags. The reporter, John, gave him his card so they can meet up after he's out and talk about what it's like for a longtime inmate to reenter the world. I have a feeling I'll see Rick again.

On a lighter note, I had to find a feature photo today and I took pictures of little kids at the Hutchinson Community College Child Care Center! a.k.a. the HCCCCC! The kid on the slide is named Gabe Barnes. He was really funny, he told me that he was playing some kinda marine government spy bomber mission flying kill terrorists score points something game and I laughed cuz the title of the game took him like 20 seconds to say. The kid behind him is Creedan Christopherson and I don't know the third kid's name which is why we didn't use this photo in the paper tomorrow. I like how you can only see all their eyes, though.

Instead, they're gonna use this picture. I knew all three of their names, Shane, Sabrina and something else. It's just a page filler for pg A5. It'll be in color though! Other than that, the only pictures I took today were of Dennis Mahorney, who sells firewood to people. He has like 4 kids and a stepkid also. They were really nice and I enjoyed being there, even though it took me awhile to find the place.

Also, I had to take a picture at the office today of someone looking sick, for an illustration tomorrow about influenza. So, we grabbed a girl from the design desk and took lots of shots of her trying to look sick. I don't know what the final illustration looks like, but the photo she used looked like this:
We have a fancy study at the office with White Lightning Heads and a huge backdrop system with white black and gray paper backgrounds. It's nice, just plug n shoot and u have studio images! I think the illustration is going on the front page, so I'll have some kinda photo credit, woot.


Also, I took this image of a grain elevator while I was driving back from the Mahorneys'. It's like the most heavenly grain elevator in all of Kansas.

TB