Photo courtesy of CCP "Jeff Winchester, Prisoner" is a 1987 photo from Morrie Camhi's works, collectively titled "The Prisoner Experience." "The Prisoner Experience" is the second installment of the Center for Creative Photography's series about imprisonment in America.

The Center for Creative Photography is at it again.

To begin its 2002 exhibition series, the facility presents three shows that explore the themes of incarceration, the death penalty and general institutionalized punishment.

"Prison Terms: Lucinda Devlin's The Omega Suites," opens Saturday and runs until March 3. It will be followed in later months by Morrie Camhi's "The Prison Experience" and a compilation called "Looking into the Collection: Punishment."

"Photographers have historically made some of life's most difficult realities their subject, understanding that their particular medium is a profound witness and a telling interpreter," said CCP Collections and Exhibitions Curator Trudy Wilner Stack in a press release. "Denying freedom to individuals for criminal conduct, even their right to life, is the challenging subject that concerns this trio of exhibitions."

During the '90s, photographer Lucinda Devlin researched the incarceration systems of 20 states before choosing and capturing the images that struck her most deeply. Her harsh, barren photographs depict the sometimes frightening interiors of capital punishment institutions.

Camhi's collection records the 18 months he spent in prison in the late '80s. His images paint pictures of the inmates and staff he met there, incorporating both their past crimes and their daily lives of imprisonment. The CCP acquired Camhi's photographs in 1999, shortly before the artist died.

The third portion of the exhibition explores 15 photographers' interpretations of the execution of punishment in the United States.

"Relevant themes are explored in depth by Camhi and Devlin, and throughout the Center's collection in work by such key American artists as Ansel Adams, Denny Lyon, Marion Palfi and Andy Warhol," Wilner Stack said.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an assembly of gallery talks and other events, including a documentary film series. Tuesday's film, "The Farm: Angola, USA," researches Angola Prison in Louisiana, the biggest maximum-security prison in the country, and life in that penitentiary. The film begins at 5:30 p.m.

Admission to the exhibitions and events at the CCP are always free and open to the public. For more information, call 621-7968.