Eastern State Penitentiary

This year, I worked on a shoot for the Versus channel shooting portraits of cage fighters. We were lucky enough to get to shoot the fighters in the historical Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. If you're not familiar with it, Eastern State is considered to be the first true penitentiary in this country, and served as the blueprint for many prisons to come. It housed many famous criminals, including Al Capone for 8 months. Eastern Pen was operational from 1829-1971, and it now sits as a museum for tourists. The best part, in my opinion, is that they've done very little upkeep on the building interiors -- letting the paint peel, plants to grow out of the walls, and the bars to rust. It's really given this place an epic look to it. It was the perfect gritty spot to shoot the fighters in. What a great shooting location -- thanks to Blink Productions and folks over at Versus for making this shoot happen!

Al Capone | Mugshot

Over and Out,

SD