While researching a documentary project in 2006 at Le Musée de la Préfecture de Police in Paris, Raynal Pellicer, a director best known perhaps for his series of 100 short films of people reacting to various art works, came across the anthropometric photo of Amélie Élie, a French prostitute known as “The Golden Helmet. This triggered Pellicer’s interest in legal photography, in particular the work of Alphonse Bertillon, and his decision to put together the Mug Shots book.

In 1882, Alphonse Bertillon created a scientific system for the identification of criminals and developed the anthropometric photo, showing the accused’s measurements and physical markings. Today, the mug shot is an essential police procedure worldwide. From Dreyfus to O.J. Simpson, this international selection includes notables like Lenin, Al Capone, Frank Sinatra, Martin Luther King and much more.

I think the celebrities would be particularly intriguing as this is one image they are unable to control. Each image is accompanied by an account of the subjects arrest and the trials that followed. I had a blast watching all these revealing Mug Shots, definitely a must read!!!