Crime Photography
On the other side of the spectrum of forensic photography, is the crime photography that involves documenting the scene of the crime, rather than the criminal. Though this type of forensic photography was also created for the purpose of documenting, identifying and convicting, it allows more room for creative interpretation and variance of style. It includes taking pictures of the victim (scars, wounds, birthmarks, etc.) for the purpose of identification or conviction; and pictures of the scene (placement of objects, position of body, photos of evidence and fingerprints). The development of this type of forensic photography is responsible for radical changes in the field, including public involvement (crime photos appearing in the newspaper) and new interpretations and purposes of the field.
Bertillon was also the first to methodically photograph and document crime scenes. He did this both at ground level and overhead, which he called "God's-eye-view." While his mug shots encourage people to find differences (from themselves) in physical characteristics of criminals, his crime scene photographs revealed similarities to the public. This made people question, when looking in a newspaper at pictures of a murder that took place in a home that resembles their own, "could this happen to me?" For the first time, people other than criminologists, police or forensic photographers were seeing the effects of crime through forensic photography.
Read more about this topic: History Of Forensic Photography
Famous quotes containing the words crime and/or photography:
“How could passion run so deep
Had I never thought
That the crime of being born
Blackens all our lot?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)