Errol Morris on the Art of the Mug Shot

The mug shot, from its very beginnings in the mid–19th century, attempted to provide a unique identification of a criminal suspect. Rogues' galleries were established in major police departments and various attempts were made to catalog and classify these photographs. They were trying to answer the question: how do I know that the person arrested in Rochester, N.Y., in 1874 is the same person arrested in Buffalo, in 1877? Clearly, photography has its limitations. It has never alone served as a way of identifying people. People change their appearance; they grow beards, change their hairstyles, grow older. Various attempts were made to standardize how mug shots were taken: the separate head shot and profile. And yet, these "mirrored" images, from <i>Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots</i>, created strange, haunted pictures of a person at one moment in time.