Least Wanted

Graphic designer Mark Michaelson has a collection of tens of thousands of vintage mug shots. He's not after famous crooks or celebrities but rather "the small-timers, the least-wanted." Michaelson has posted some of his photos in various Flickr groups and also collected them in a beautiful hardcover coffee table book titled, Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots. The new issue of Smithsonian magazine features an article about Michaelson and a selection of his mug shots.

From the article:
...We are drawn to the photographs by their undeniable authenticity. In this day of flickering instantaneous images and photo-manipulation software, the mugs stare back as rare artifacts. "In an increasingly digital world," Michaelson notes in the book, "the hard copy original is an endangered species." Yet there's something else. The Least Wanted images intrigue us in the way a collection of old passport photos might not. A mug shot captures people at their lowest or most vulnerable. We look hard at their faces, calculating guilt or innocence. And then look harder.