Crime Scene Photography

What an inspiring day! Today we had a visiting lecturer, Keith Smith who is a crime scene photographer. He explained to us how it’s not as glamorous as the television show but it still had me on the edge of my seat. I’ve always been interested in forensics and how officers work to unveil a story to bring justice to its victims.

Keith had us working through 5 different work shops, the first being photographic evidence that is underwater, typically a shoe print. We had a bath of water and a plaster of paris mould of a shoe print at the bottom. We set up the camera and shot above the cast.

We had a light and shined it at different angles to cast different effects of shadowing in the grooves. Keith mentioned that a correctly composed shot of this would have been if I was completely over the top of the print to get a clearer view and better depth of field in the frame. Also as the scaling of the image is important as evidence, and having the evidence underwater would not be suitable for using the measuring markers, you should place a fixed scaled item such as a 2p coin next to the object to allow correct judgement of the evidence.

In the second exercise we learnt a little about photographic injuries, I was the victim/criminal. He explained to us how when photographing these scenarios you can make the subject appear the victim and also the criminal just by altering the exposure slightly.

(Sorry for the awful photos of me)

Over exposed images can make the subject appear ghostly and possibly like a heroin addict.

Under exposed images make the injury look much more severe and this will make the viewers feel more empathy towards the victim.

In proper practice you should shoot the image as a portrait from the shoulders showing the whole upper appearance, and the move the subject to face the side slightly and the photograph focusing in more on the injuries detail.

The third exercise was similar to the first one and that was taking evidence of a shoe print in sand. To make this exercise  more fun and challenging we got to put on the white suits, gloves mask and goggles to get a feel what it would be like working in this gear. It did get a bit hot under the mask as you are recycling warm air that you have already exhaled, which made working more difficult. It was still fun to practice though and we got to use the measure scale next to the evidence.

With photographic crime scenes like this put in to context you should photograph a wider shot of the to allow full awareness of the scene with an evidence marker placed on the area of interest and then zoom into the location of where the evidence is held.

Also like with the water and the footprint, make sure you are exactly on top of the print and to take a couple different images with the light at different angles, as this is allow the shoe print team to have a detailed analysis of the print to match on their database.

Exercise four was set inside the dark room, using UV lights, magnetic powder, a magnet, a bottle and our finger prints. This was probably the most colourful and interesting of the day as you got a real hands on experience with the equipment. The magnetic powder is lifter out of the bottle using a magnet, which is then dusted onto the bottle to pick up finger prints.

With this image you can see the finger prints but it would appear a lot more clearer with the excess powder dusted off so that all the swirls and marks are easier to view. Also for use in forensics, the image would have to be much closer to obtain full detail.

After we brushed away the excess we saw a lot more detail in the print.

The final task was the most interesting, it was simulating a Chemical Biological Radiation and Nuclear crime scene (CBRN). We were geared up with gas masks and a minimum of 2 gloves. With in the 3 of us we had me as group leader, Oli as the finger print obtainer and Christy as the photographer. These situations are always risky as the chemicals are often used to cause death or suicide. This exercise is used to find out if the crime scene was in fact murder or suicide, by finding out if there is any incriminating evidence.

We were told that the victim is still alive in hospital and that they had only touched the neck of the bottle. So as we entered the darkened room to pin point the bottle we had to be careful to only handle it from the neck up, being careful not tamper with any evidence. Once we had located the bottle, we dusted it for prints using aluminium oxide and a dusting brush. Once we have found a decent print with enough detail on, we lifted it using selotape and placed it on clear acetate. We then place it underneath an underwater camera, the camera has to be underwater as after it has been in a CBRN scene it has to be washed in bleach to decontaminate. To photograph the print, we shot in macro mode, with a suppressed flash and with a torch shining on the print. Once we had a clear detailed shot of the print we had completed the task, and the evidence had been obtained.

The Finger Print!