Growing up I remember people asking each other here and there what their hypothetical “last meal” would be. The range of things always fascinated me. James Reynolds had the same fascination, and found an actual list of final meals that inmates requested before being put to death. He then photographed them on the standard issue prison lunch trays. They’re incredibly intriguing.
‘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.’
