DBPFP26: Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane Evelyn Atwood (b. 1947, New York, USA) is shortlisted for her publication Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised, bilingual reprint of two works originally published in 2000 and updated by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille in 2024. 

 

Black and white photograph of a woman handcuffed in a bed with tubes and straps taped to her stomach.

DBPFP26: Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane Evelyn Atwood (b. 1947, New York, USA) is shortlisted for her publication Too Much Time / Trop de Peines, a revised, bilingual reprint of two works originally published in 2000 and updated by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille in 2024. 

 

Atwood’s Too Much Time  stems from a ten-year investigation during which she accompanied incarcerated women in forty prisons across nine countries in the 1990s. Through research and empathy, Atwood documented the lived realities of female inmates: limited access to hygienic facilities, a lack of gynaecological and mental health care, and stark inequalities compared to their male counterparts.  

Black and white photograph of a woman sat on a prison bed staring into the distance.

Jane Evelyn Atwood, Prisoner in the prison workshop, Centre Pénitentiaire Les Baumettes, Marseille, France, 1991 © Jane Evelyn Atwood


The intimacy of her black-and-white images is rooted in long-term commitment and unwavering advocacy for women in prison – a cause she continues to champion today. Since its original publication, Atwood’s message has only become more urgent. Globally, the female prison population has grown by 50-60% since 2000. Driven by a deep commitment to social justice and a desire to expose systems of exclusion, Atwood brings visibility to lives and stories many choose to ignore.  

More about Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane Evelyn Atwood was born in New York and has been living in France since 1971. Her work translates the profound intimacy she establishes with her subjects over long periods of time.  Fascinated by people and by the idea of exclusion, she manages to penetrate worlds that most of us ignore or choose to ignore. She is the author of fifteen books, including a monograph in the prestigious Photo Poche collection, and Too Much Time, Women in Prison. Her other books include Rue des Lombards, her first story on sex-workers in Paris; Pigalle People, about the trans community of a red-light district in Paris; and DARYA, about a Ukrainian woman who cares for the elderly in Italy, and, most recently, HORSES. She has won many prestigious international awards including the first W. Eugene Smith Award, Leica's Oskar Barnack Award, an Alfred Eisenstadt Prize and the Ernst Haas Award. In 2022 she was made Officier des Arts et des Lettres in France. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in many private and public collections. Jane Evelyn Atwood is represented by the gallery, In Camera.   

Explore DBPFP26

Colour photograph of three children sat at a table with lemons spread out, along with a grater and a jug.

DBPFP26: Weronika Gęsicka 

Weronika Gęsicka  (b. 1984, Włocławek , Poland) is shortlisted for the publication  Encyclopaedia , published by BLOW UP PRESS and Jednostka Gallery in November 2024. 

Black and white photograph of a woman behind a net curtain, holding two babies in each of her arms.

DBPFP26: Amak Mahmoodian 

Amak Mahmoodian  (b. 1980, Shiraz, Iran) is shortlisted for the exhibition  One Hundred and Twenty Minutes at the Bristol Photo Festival, UK, in collaboration with Multistory (16 October – 17

Colour photograph of an elderly person walking along the street past a shuttered shop front that has “STEAL FROM THE RICH” spray-painted in front.

DBPFP26: Rene Matić

Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough, UK) is shortlisted for the exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH , at CCA Berlin, Germany (8 November 2024 – 15 February 2025).