The Mugshot. Definitely a work of art.

We’ve had a few of them come into our possession over the years, and they are always full of so much fascinating mystery. They definitely have a special quality to them; you know that person did something “wrong” and then they paid for it. Most of the time we don’t know what that “wrong”-doing was, or what happened to them thereafter, and for someone with a vivid imagination like ours, it can provide endless amounts of entertainment.

Sites like Small Town Noir give new life to these individuals and their stories, and many of the mugshots that really inspired us for this post are taken from there. Definitely check it out!

Mugshots were first devised in 1888 by French police clerk Alphonse Bertillon who devised the classic format of a side by side profile and head on photograph on one sheet to keep…