Last Meals on Death Row

London photographer James Reynolds has documented the final meals of former death row inmates. The prison trays are replicas of those used in maximum security prisons.

“I saw a small list of what a few death row prisoners had chosen for their last meals before their deaths and I wondered what they would look like as a visual image. After all, these meals would be one of the last things these prisoners see before they die.

At first I just wanted to see what these meals looked like on the iconic prison tray. I wanted to get the viewer to think, or have an opinion.

I’d like to think that the photographs make the viewer think, what thought that is, I am not sure, as I myself had more thoughts the more I looked at them. What would my last meal be? What kind of people were these prisoners? Why did they choose that particular meal? What crime did they commit?”

“The single olive still had its stone. The inmate thought that after being executed and buried, an olive tree—a symbol of peace—would grow from him. It was indeed a very profound thought or idea, but an olive tree has not yet been found on his grave.”

- James Reynolds, Good