After the fall of communism Yordan Yordanov was the first to be given permission to photograph life in Bulgarian prisons. He began in the central prison in Sofia, the capital, where he encountered degrading conditions. After that he visited Belene, which had functioned as a concentration camp under communism. Complexes in Razdelena, Bobov Dol and Kremkovtzi followed. Yordanov also photographed the women's prison in Silven, where he was surprised at the responsiveness of the women confined there. 'Closed environments for open souls,' Yordanov called the Bulgarian prisons: places where only ostensibly nothing happens.

Yordan Yordanov (b. Bulgaria, 1940) has been photographing since the 1960s, chiefly as a freelancer. He is one of the most prominent photographers in Bulgaria.