Forensic photography, sometimes referred to as forensic imaging or crime scene photography, is the art of producing an accurate reproduction of a crime scene or an accident scene using photography for the benefit of a court or to aid in an investigation. It is part of the process of evidence collecting. It provides investigators with photos of victims, places and items involved in the crime. Pictures of accidents show broken machinery, or a car crash, and so on. Photography of this kind involves choosing correct lighting, accurate angling of lenses, and a collection of different viewpoints. Scales, like items of length measurement or objects of known size, are often used in the picture so that dimensions of items are recorded on the image.

Methods[link]

Skid mark from faulty ladder

Crime or accident scene photographers usually capture images in color but also in black and white. The photograph of the skid mark was made during reconstruction at the accident scene to show how and why the ladder had slipped and caused a serious injury to the user. Color pictures are generally preferred because color may be an important aspect of the trace evidence, for example. Thus traces of paint or dye on a piece of evidence may be crucial to linking the evidence with a crime or accident.

Various forces and different countries have different policies in regards to 35 mm film or digital photography. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Conventional film photographs, even using disposable cameras, have a high resolution, enabling great enlargement should details in a picture need closer examination. Pictures from surveillance cameras are a growing source of evidence for courts, as are pictures taken by bystanders on mobile phones. The former are being used increasingly at accident blackspots, and bystanders may take pictures of events when no police officer or investigator is present, but yet may be critical to a case. Digital photographs usually have an automatic date and time marker on each image, so that authenticity can be verified. Conventional photographs without such marks must be authenticated by the photographer, usually in a witness statement. Pictures of the relative position of objects (as in a Palimpsest) can establish a sequence of events at a crime or accident scene. Due to continued advances in digital technology and software, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras are increasingly being used by law enforcement agencies.

Fit for court[link]

The images must be clear and usually have scales. They serve to not only remind investigators of the scene, but also to provide a tangible image for the court to better enable them to understand what happened. The use of several views taken from different angles helps to minimise the problem of parallax. Overall images do not have scales and serve to show the general layout, such as the house where the murder is thought to have occurred. Context images show evidence in context, like how the knife was next to the sofa. Close up images show fine detail of an artifact, such as a bloody fingerprint on the knife.

Road traffic incident (RTI) photographs show the overall layout at the scene taken from many different angles, with close-ups of significant damage, or trace evidence such as tire marks at a traffic collision. As with crime scene photography, it is essential that the site is pristine and untouched as far as is possible. Some essential intervention, such as rescuing a trapped victim, must be recorded in the notes made at the time by the photographer, so that the authenticity of the photographs can be verified.

As with all evidence a chain of custody must be maintained for crime scene photographs. Sometimes a CSI (forensic photographer) will process his/her own film or there is a specific lab for it. Regardless of how it is done any person who handles the evidence must be recorded. Secure Digital Forensic Imaging methods may be applied to help ensure against tampering and improper disclosure.^[1] Accident scene pictures should also be identified and sourced, police photographs taken at the scene often being used in civil cases.

Analysis of historic photographs[link]

Original Tay Bridge from the north

Photograph of 1880 showing fallen Tay Bridge

Crime or accident scene photographs can often be re-analysed in cold cases or when the images need to be enlarged to show critical details. Photographs made by film exposure usually contain much information which may be crucial long after the photograph was taken. They can readily be digitised by scanning, and then enlarged to show the detail needed for new analysis. For example, controversy has raged for a number of years over the cause of the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879 when a half-mile section of the new bridge collapsed in a storm, taking an express train down into the estuary of the river Tay. At least 75 passengers and crew were killed in the disaster.

The set of photographs taken a few days after the accident have been re-analysed in 1999-2000 by digitising them and enlarging the files to show critical details. The originals were of very high resolution since a large plate camera was used with a small aperture, plus a small grain film. The re-analysed pictures shed new light on why the bridge fell, suggesting that design flaws and defects in the cast iron columns which supported the centre section led directly to the catastrophic failure. Alternative explanations that the bridge was blown down by the wind during the storm that night, or that the train derailed and hit the girders are unlikely. The re-analysis supports the original court of inquiry conclusions, which stated that the bridge was "badly designed, badly built and badly maintained".

See also[link]

• Forensic engineering
• Forensic materials engineering
• Forensic polymer engineering
• Forensic science
• Photography
• History of forensic photography
• Skid mark
• Trace evidence

References[link]

• Introduction to Forensic Engineering (The Forensic Library) by Randall K. Noon, CRC Press (1992).
• Forensic Engineering Investigation by Randall K. Noon, CRC Press (2000).
• Forensic Materials Engineering: Case Studies by Peter Rhys Lewis, Colin Gagg, Ken Reynolds, CRC Press (2004).
• Peter R Lewis and Sarah Hainsworth, Fuel Line Failure from stress corrosion cracking, Engineering Failure Analysis,13 (2006) 946-962.
• Peter R. Lewis, Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879, Tempus, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-3160-9.

External links[link]

• An online course
• Westchester Police site
• Museum of failed products
• The journal Engineering Failure Analysis

Melanie Pullen (born in New York City, September 10, 1975) is a photographer who currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California^[1]

Pullen's work has been exhibited internationally, including solo-shows at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles and Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills; White Wall Gallery, Seoul; MiCamera, Milan. Her work has also been included in various museum exhibitions and has been broadly published ^[1]

Photographic art[link]

Pullen is most noted for High Fashion Crime Scenes which consists of over one-hundred photographs based on NYPD and LAPD crime scene files.

To create High Fashion Crime Scenes (1995–2005), Pullen employed the services of up to 80 crew members and models per picture, with each image taking up to a month to create, and the series using over $13 million dollars worth of clothing and accessories.^[2]

Her photo shoots often resemble movie sets. High Fashion Crime Scenes in particular was directly inspired by cinema and photojournalism.^[3]

During her research into crime-scene photography, Pullen became haunted by war imagery. Pullen states,

"As I grew desensitized to domestic crime and violence, I became more sensitized to images of war. It was a strange phenomenon that I've explored and philosophized. I don’t like violence, I have never been a dark person. I see stories and different layers to violent imagery. I'm curious about the response people have to violent images.” ^[4]

This became Pullen's inspiration for Violent Times her more recent body of work and most elaborate series to date.

Early photography[link]

It is interesting to note that although there is strong theoretical connotation to her work, alongside masterful lighting and color theory, Pullen has never gone to school for photography, or taken a single lesson. She has learned her craft through trial and error, a process that has proved greatly beneficial to her work.

Despite her love of “accidents”, she is in fact a perfectionist “to the point of driving [herself] insane.” Pullen is inspired by geometry, and she loves lines and symmetry.^[5]

Shortly after acquiring, her first camera in her teens she began shooting for several publications, magazines, catalogs, and record labels.^[6]

She worked in 2004 with Beck for his album Guero and The Information. In addition to Beck, she's shot many other musicians, such as: Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Rock Kills Kid and The Black Keys.^[7][8][9]

Pullen did a small series of portraits of famed photographer Julius Shulman that have never been seen.^[6]

Printing and methods[link]

Pullen's photographs are some of the largest images in the world. Her images range in size from four-foot up to ten-foot seamless photographs. Some are face-mounted prints and others are large-format positives backlit in massive light-boxes.

She primarily works in film and shoots with a range of cameras, including: Hasselblad 503cw; Hasselblad H2; Linhof Technika; Canon EOS 3.

Pullen prints and retouches all of her own work with very little help, if any. She does her own high resolution scanning and she still employs traditional spotting techniques due to the size of her prints. She personally hand spots each print.^[6]

Childhood and Early Inspiration[link]

Pullen was raised in New York City's West Village. As a child her family consisted of writers, publishers, poets and painters. Her childhood home was frequented in the 70s and 80s by the likes of Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Emily Glen and Shel Silverstein. Pullen at the age of six would sometimes perform in Washington Square Park with Phillippe Petit (Man on Wire) in his neighborhood shows.^[6]

Pullen has noted that one of her inspirations was grandmother Ann Guilfoyle, the photo editor at Audubon Magazine and founder of The Guilfoyle Report^[10] . Pullen's grandfather George Hornby started Domesday Press and worked as a freelancer or staff member with Knopf, Crown, Random House, Crowell-Collier, Rowman & Littlefield, and Farrar Straus & Young. He designed Mr. President, a biographical study of Harry S. Truman in 1951 with whom he worked.^[11] Kathleen Guilfoyle, Pullen's mother, is a painter and supported her family through painting murals in Manhattan's Greenwich Village and through peddling her works on the streets of New York. Pullen's father, Wayne Pullen, has played professional pool for many years and is considered one of the most skilled one-pocket players in the US. He won first place in the USPPA Pro Am Classic in 2003 in Reno, Nevada.^[12]

Publications[link]

Pullen’s monograph High Fashion Crime Scenes (74 plates) is published by Nazraeli Press and has received international critical acclaim by magazines such as Spin,^[13] Variety, Vanity Fair, Elle and Vogue Magazine.^[6] Pullen’s book includes an introduction by Luke Crisell and essays by both Robert Enright and Colin Westerbech.^[14]

Pullen's photographic series have also been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts including: San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times Magazine, LA Times, ArtReview, The London Independent on Sunday Review, Vogue, Elle, Fortune, W, GQ, RollingStone, Nylon, Photo, Art Forum, National Public Radio, CBS Radio and CBS News.^[15]

Photography Books[link]

High Fashion Crime Scenes, Photographs by Melanie Pullen. Published by Nazraeli Press: 128 pages, ISBN 1-59005-136-X ISBN 978-1590051368

Exhibitions[link]

Solo Exhibitions

2011 Project Atrium: Melanie Pullen, The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Jacksonville FL http://www.mocajacksonville.org/current/project-atrium-melanie-pullen

2010 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles^[16]

2009 Violent Times, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco

2008 Violent Times, Ace Gallery Los Angeles

2007 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Micamera, Milan, Italy

2006 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2006 High Fashion Crime Scenes, White Wall Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2005 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Ace Gallery Beverly Hills

2004 High Fashion Crime Scenes, Presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 10th Annual Muse Art Walk, Los Angeles, CA

2003 High Fashion Crime Scenes, The Silverlake Society of Authentic Arts, Los Angeles, CA

Group Exhibitions

2008 Dreams of Promise And Peril, The Warehouse Gallery, Syracuse, NY Photos and Phantasy: Selections from The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA Art And Illusion: Selections From The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Roseville Arts! Blue Line Gallery, Roseville, CA

2007 Tell Me a Story: Narrative Photography Now, The Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

2006 City Limits, University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA Photos And Phantasy: Selections From The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum Of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA

2005 Berkus’ Beauties, Atkinson Gallery Santa Barbara City College High Fashion Crime Scenes, Ace Gallery Beverly Hills

2004 Selected Work from Juliette Lewis Series, High Fashion Crime Scenes, Downtown Artwalk, Los Angeles, CA

2003 High Fashion Crime Scene Photographs, The Silverlake Society Of Authentic Arts, Los Angeles, CA High Fashion Crime Scene Photographs, The Los Angeles Tar Festival, Los Angeles, CA

References[link]

High Fashion Crime Scenes (official site)

Ace Gallery

Exhibition Stephen Wirtz Gallery

New York Times Interview, 2004 New York Times

[Beck.com http://www.beck.com/colorspace]

[KQED Gallery Crawl http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/gallerycrawl/episode.jsp?essid=24440]

[YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF9tKM1BRrA]

Notes[link]