13.03.2012 / Arts & Culture
The usual suspects
The handsome and smartly dressed guy in the picture above is neither a Hollywood star nor a model. His name was Herbert Ellis, and when this picture was taken he had just been arrested for being a a house breaker, a shop breaker and a safebreaker.
This and other amazing mugshots have been taken in Australia from the 1910s to 1930s by the New South Wales Police Department photographers, and the funny thing about them is that the criminals are wearing top hats and waistcoats and staring fixedly back at the camera, as if posing for a family snapshot.
Yet, what strikes most about these awesome black and white pictures recently published by the Daily Mail is not their unquestionable beauty, but the incredible collection of stories that hide behind the faces.
Take Harry Crawford – originally Eugenia Falleni – a woman who managed to pass for a man for over twenty years before killing “his” wife for having found out the secret.
Or Giuseppe Fiori a.k.a Permonnto, a professional safebreaker who stares insolently into the camera like an ahead-of-time Bob De Niro.
And what about Joseph Messenger, a young petty thief with rebellious hair looking like some teenage star coming straight from a talent show?
A small and intriguing photographic Spoon River that will keep yor eyes glued to the computer screen for quite a while.
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