How Crime Scene Photography Works

Did I introduce this yet? I have not? I'm Josh Clark. You did? Oh? I did? You didn't say this is stuff you should know? This is stuff you should know? The podcast? Right, that's right. I have you noticed I've started to differentiate between the podcast and the nothing else? Oh yeah, here, let's see what we got there? You go? Yeah, So, Chuck, had you been you know, in the act of vandalism, murder, theft um, or had you done it gotten up and left some sort of scene behind that picture would have

constituted crime scene photography. That is not my intro. Uh. Did you notice in this article again named Alphonse Bertillon, right, He was a nineteenth century French photographer who was credited with um creating the concept of crime scene photography for forensic police investigation. He's also credited with creating something that any smoking gun fan will appreciate. This guy for mug shots,

like mug shots. Mug shots. Um, he created mug shots, I should say for the purpose that they're used today cataloging and criminal This guy with this face, with these tattoos has done this crime right, or has been questioned for this crime or whatever. It's it's a way of documenting what a person looks like, so there's no mistaken identity.

That kind of thing. Uh. And when um Bertillon came up with this, it was it was kind of a lifesaver for people suspected of being criminals, or for criminals because in France at the time, UM, you may be

branded with a hot iron. That's how they identified repeat offenders. Yeah, so that was kind of a safe But Bertillon was also very much interested in eugenics, which was the idea that you could create a fitter, better human race by basically sterilizing or killing people who didn't fit the idea of fitness, right, epileptics, criminals, that kind of thing, uh, And part of eugenics was based on um phrenology or the shape of the skull, the shape of the face characteristics.

And Bertillon came up with eleven character characteristics that you could measure drawn on ethnic lines, largely very much so um but using calipers and other instruments, and he came up with this uniform measure meant set. That's the other reason he started doing mug shots right, And it actually worked for a while until uh in the early turn of the century, the last century, not this past one, the one before UH Leavenworth Prison, a guy was using

this bertignon um measurement. They have a standard procedure by them to book somebody in named William West. And this guy who was doing the measurements, that was his job, so he knew everybody in the prisons measurements by heart pretty much. He was like, I have measured your face before, and this William West is like, no, I promise you I have not been here before. And he's like, I

don't know. Let me look. So he looks it up and sees that yes, he has indeed come up with the same exact measurements for these eleven different distinct characteristics which Bertillon calculated to be one in about four million, the chances of two people having the same characteristics. And not only that, this Leavenworth forensics guy, UM finds that they're attributed or cataloged with a guy by the name of William West. Here's the thing. The guy he was

booking processing wasn't lying. The other William West was still in prison in Leavenworth with the same eleven characteristics. So as of that guy's processing, there were two William West with identical facial characteristics in Leavenworth at the same time. So was that the beginning of the end of mugshots being used in that way pretty much, because from what I understand with the characteristics, it was sort of like he was using this proof like just look at the guy,

just look at him right, look at the face. Well, not not only that, by studying, by creating a catalog of people along these eleven characteristics, like how far apart your eyes were, like how protruding your eyebrow, your eyebrow ridge? Is that kind of thing? Um, you would conceivably and we're very much doing something along the same lines with

d N today. Um, we're conceivably saying, well, this person with this you know, pronounced eyebrow ridge is um, you know, very much predisposed to acts of murder and violence because if you, as you've seen all these other people that we've cataloged, had this protruding eyebrow ridge and that common characteristic shows that you're a murderer. Not to nab a criminal, no, but it's the same point that we're at with these DNA data bases that we've spoken about. To Chuck, let's

get back to crime scene photography, shall we. Yes, Bertillon was the first guy to really do that, and he um, he was the first guy to I mean, there's been forensic photography, they said, since pretty much the camera's been around. But he was the first guy to say, you know what, let's do some different angles, and let's get some real close ups, and let's survey the whole scene, and now we have sort of a picture of what the whole crime scene looks like and methodical. He was the first

to really apply a method to it. Before um, it kind of grew out of newspapers printing crime scene photos like The Guy in Road to Perdition. Um. Jude Law. Yeah, I enjoyed that it was a good movie, but they would they would go for the art or the shock value of it, not necessarily the evidentiary value. So yeah, it's very sensationalistic. U. Crime Scene photography is obviously very

important because evidence is transitory. Um. You clean up a crime scene, you remove the body, lift the fingerprints, you do all that stuff. So you need to get it while the egg is still in the pan. As they say that, I think you just say that so before everyone else comes in and does their thing, um, the

crime scene photographer. There's a lot of pressure on on these men and women to go in first because they've got their c s. I guys outside saying all right, come on, let's get this over with so we can start analyzing it. Right. But they gotta be first because you don't want to disrupt the scene. Yeah, and you have to take your time, and you have to do it right, and there's standard procedures that you have to come up with very much. Um. But yeah, it's kind

of a high pressure job. It's it's a very important job. You remember when we were talking about, UM, blood pattern analysis just a couple of days ago, it seems it seems like just no time at all, UM, But you were talking about how maybe some police departments have people pulling double duty with blood pattern analysis. Uh, not necessarily so with crime scene photography. Uh, this isn't so. This is not as much in art as a science, even though it's something that grew out of an art um.

This this position is very valuable, so much so that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office has its own crime scene photography and videography department, and they dispatched them independently of the police. Interesting, so there'll be two on the scene because they found that documenting a crime scene is so important to closing a case that they just they have their own peeps doing it, their own, their own homies. Alright,

so let's talk about the classifications of forensic photos. There's uh three of them, and at first it sounds like no dub. But it's a little more interesting than that. You've got your overview, you've got your mid range, you got your close up. You think overview, you think, yeah, they just take the big wide shot. They take a lot more than that. They take pictures of the outside of the buildings. They take a pictures entrances and exits. They take pictures of uh, let's say it's there's a

crowd of folks standing around that police tape. You know in the movies they always return to the scene of the crime. You can pick them out of that crowd. So they take pictures of the crowd. Not only that, if the police are canvassing the crowd and some people wander off or whatever, you can use that to go

find those people who may be potential witnesses. Uh. They will take pictures of uh, not just the room, but every angle of the room, the corners of the room, um, the different rooms in Like let's say the murder occurred in a bedroom. They're not just gonna stick to the bedroom. They're gonna take pictures of all the rooms in the house because they may say, uh, look at the picture.

The phone was off the hook in the other room, so let's go lift fingerprints off the phone handle, or trace the last call that was made something like that coming from upstairs. It's inside the house. So that's the overview. That's the overview, right, and that that pretty much is like, Okay, here's the boring part, and then the oh my god, now we're at the mid mid range. Right. Yeah, that's when you use zoom in a bit on some of the gruesome aspects of the crime. I've told you before.

I think I've mentioned it that I've seen like some some crime scene photography that's really like oh, Dian the Woods, No, thank you, Yeah, not for you know, Kurt Cobain. People are always trying to find that photo his his wouldn't the crime scene but his death scene. Or was it that's right Courtney or who's that investigative turnalist that tried depending on her I know there's a documentary. Yeah it was that guy, Nick somethmer other Nick Cage, Nick Cave,

Nick Love, No, none of those people, Nick and Jessica. Yes, that's what it was. Uh So the mid range shots are pieces of evidence, um, like the murder weapon if it's there, Um, but you're not you know, you're gonna do some different variations. You're gonna zoom in on the murder weapon obviously, but you also want to show it in relation to where it is on the scene, like it was laying uh you know, on the floor three ft from the body. Yes, and now you can take

it away now right. Um, After the mid range we come to the close up, and the close up is going to be like maybe the murder instrument, um, a tattoo on the victim's body, UM scar serial number. If somebody used like a DVD player to beat somebody else to death with it, you got to catalog the murder weapon that kind of thing. Good point, um, So that this is what the close ups useful for. Uh. And then when you're taking it a close up photo, you take one with like an instrument, like a rule or

something like that to provide scae all. Yeah, and then you also take a duplicate photo of the same photo without the measuring device. So the defense can't be like, oh, well that ruler was actually covering up, you know, in controvertible evidence that my client was not guilty, covering up the name of the killer. Yeah, so it's important to take two, you're right. Uh. They also have to be really detailed with the photolog um has all the details.

Nowadays with digital photography, you have you know, you can have the sequence of photo number, the date and time, all that like already stamped on. But back in the day, they would you know, use a log and a book to record all this. Um. The filters that they use, Like, hey, I used to daylight filter out here because I had to but it's you know, it can't be tainted. So you gotta let people know that that was a filter use. You gotta be honest, You gotta be very honest, Chuck.

We also mentioned that you, um, there's a standard operating procedure that you have to come up with. One of the big one of the big aspects that lens readents to crime scene photography is that sensationalism has been pulled

completely out of it has no place in it whatsoever. Um. And one of the ways that you ensure that you your photographers aren't being sensational or can't even be accused of being sensational, is by coming up with the standard operating procedure and method that you are are going to employ when taking photographs. Right, So you have to have things like maximum depth of field, which is the amount of a photograph that's crisp and clearing in focus. Right.

You can't be all already and do one of those like a portrait things where the background is blurry might look neat if you're telling the cadaver to make love to the camera, you're you're you're on the wrong path with your crime scene photography. Yeah, the last thing you want is for your boss to say, boy, these are really sensational. Yes, because why you might say, well, thanks, that's not what you're looking for, not at all. You

don't want art school calling you. So other technical specs that should make up this UM photo taking procedure right are, UM, you want to make sure that the photos as sharp sharp as possible, UM, and that none of the devices that you're using to measure are blocking anything. You don't want to get creative with how you take the photo. You don't want to cover up anything, leave anything out.

You can't let anything be blurry. That's important, that kind of thing, right, And that's just part of this larger standard standard operating procedure. Correct. Yeah, and that's for for the picture taken itself, But the procedure also includes afterward. UM, you have to have a standard chain of custody UM image security because you know, Dexter leads a crime scene with the camera and what's he gonna do with it? Right? Or if he hands it to UM? What's the one guy? Yeah,

the funny comic relief. Yeah, have you seen his trucks? I couldn't believe it he hands it to UM. I don't want to get any emails, Chuck, we'll look it up. He hands it to Macusa macause, and um, Macusa should sign something that says, I took custody of this flash drive, um from Dexter Morgan, and my name is MARCUSA exactly, and then he'll make some vague sexual joke and everyone will laugh at home. You have to preserve that original

digital image. So let's say you want to blow it up and change the contrast a bit to to highlight something. That's all great, that's all groovy, but you have to note that you've done that, and you have to have the original in its original form and format as whatever. If it's a jpeg, you can't make it a gift or a gift, certainly not an animated gift that's grousing would be weird. Uh. There are a lot of times there's image security software to make sure everything stays like

it should. You have to store it in uh, you know, like on a hard drive. You have to backups of it, right, just gotta be really, really really detailed. It's not like your vacation photos. No, anytime you do anything to manipulate that photo, you should log it and be again, you have to be just be completely honest. You shouldn't have any dog in the fight. No, of course not. Your just your job is to document the scene and and extract or prevent any emotion from coming into it as

much as possible. Yeah, exactly right. Let's talk about the kit, which isn't super exciting. But you're gonna have your camera, maybe a couple. Yeah, if you're into that, you're gonna have a variety of lenses that will work for different crime scenes. You're gonna have some filters if you need them. You want your wide angle lens, you want your mid range. You want if you want a zoom in on something and you don't want to get down on the floor, you might want a zoom lens. Yeah, be a good

IDEA light meter make sure everything looks great. So, Chuck, what is the um? I noticed? The great card? Was the great card? I saw it works with the light meter. Yeah. I think you use that to to to set your meter. Is that right? Like you use the like that's your like your meter understands this is the g card. It's it's the zero value. I think so. I think it's

sort of like white balancing a video camera. Okay, I might I might have that wrong though, Um, and generally you're gonna use color unless uh they said things like latent fingerprints sometimes or show up better in black and white. Yes, but we mentioned video. Since uh I said that word, yeah, I think, um, it's become a lot more prevalent since the advent of the video camera, let's say so, and especially nowadays. You know the uh SLRs that shoot great

high deaf video. I've seen she can have all in one package here. You don't have to have a couple of cameras you have to tote around. So SLR a brand name. No, okay, it's uh single lens reflex. I believe that's a guess, all right, Josh. Videotape You know a lot about photography, don't you. My dad's a big

shutter bug. I grew up with it. Videotape is used a lot nowadays, and that can do a lot of things that regular SLR photography cannot, Like show you you can literally walk a jury through a crime scene and show relationships to uh, you know, the body or the uh the weapons. Like a picture is one thing. It's worth a thousand words at least, But twenty four frames

per second that's worth right, I would say, yes. So videos has used a lot of times, and they say if there's video that they actually video before they take the still photographs and the c s. I guys are out there going come on, you're gonna draw a picture too. Well, that's what they used to do originally, they would draw. I was that with that one. Yeah, they would sketch the crime scene. But of course, I mean, it doesn't get a lot more subjective than sketches. So when photography

came along, people see he's done it pretty quick. When the video camera came along, people were like, oh, this is just is good, if not better, let's accompany the two. But you need both. Uh. They they use infrared films sometimes if it's dark and you need to get a blood stain, that's when you're you're super fancy. I think what else? Oh, I'll tell you. The thing I thought was cool was the if you video blood spatter on

a wall. Let's say someone's brains are blown out over a wall, you could potentially you could potentially photograph that, put a yard stick in there as as a as a frame of reference, and then years later or days later, you can uh make a slide. You know, if it's just if if if it's a slide, then you can project that onto the wall, even onto that wall actual size, so you can kind of recreate it as it was before it got all cleaned up, projected right there on

the wall. It was really kind of like Princess Leiah. Uh. Yeah, I guess so when when R two D two Uh is that what you're talking about, or when archie Chi was projecting her as a hologram. Yeah, although nothing like that. Um, you want to talk about Wegi. Yeah, Wegi's one cool cat. What's this deal? Wegi is uh the I guess pseudonym of a guy named Arthur Fellig And he was big

from the twenties to you, I think the fifties. He was an independent photographer photojournalist and uh he had a special knack for uh sniffing out crime scenes, so much so that someone once complimented him that he had the sense of a Weigi board to predict when a crime was gonna occur, so we would be in the right place at the right time to like really get all the photography he wanted out of it, right, how do

you do that? Well? He lived in a shack behind the police station in Manhattan, and he had a police scanner. Um and yeah, he basically didn't have a life, so he just sat around listening to the police scanner and he would just head on over. He also had a pretty extensive network of informants, um, cops, robbers, bar keeps, you know, prostitutes whoever. I wonder if they based uh An l A confidential was that Danny DeVito was the Was he the photographer? Now? I think this guy was

way more put together than Danny DeVito's character was. Yeah. He um, although it would make sense because Weigi, which he adopted that name, but he spelled it phonetically W E G E. Right. Um. He did travel to l A and uh he created a spread called Naked City and it became the the um movie, The Naked City. Right. But he was just this famous crime scene photographer. One of the things that he became famous for was not

just the crime scene any smoke. Could you know, shoot a dead body, and that was something um, but he would often turn and just start taking photos like close ups of the crowd in their prairie in ecstasy, you know, like with these crazy like some would be laughing and others would be smiling and some would be crying, and it was just like it would capture the range of emotion.

And he has one very famous photograph called Their First Murder that was taken in Williamsburg, which is hipster central now in Brooklyn Um and they it's just this group of people of all ages. They all seem to be white, but they're all just in this weird pose, like almost writhing in ecstasy, um on the scene of a murder, like before the cops have even got there. Like that crowd that crowds around. Oh yeah, look at him, like Ray Ray Bradberry wrote about them, the crowd. They would

be there on the scene when an accident occurred. Interesting, it's kind of like that. But anyway, we Gie had some pretty good stuff well, and that that kind of brings up a point that crime scene photographs have been viewed. And this is once from back in the day. I don't think they new ones as art, but in uh, in Hollywood, in l A. They dug up in two thousand one a bot well, I say a box. It's

probably more than one box. A trove, a trove, a treasure trove if you will, of old forensic photos, and some of them were some of the most infamous crimes and murders in the in the history, and black Dahlia comes to mind. I don't know if that was in there, but yeah, I wonder if it was in there. I'm sure it was probably And uh, some of these negatives were decomposing and deteriorating at this point, so they said, you know, like we should preserve these because it's historical record,

and some of these are really great photographs. And so, uh, years later they actually took it on tour in art galleries. What was it called. I think it was called I know Wegi did that, didn't he? Yeah, we Gi had one in New York called the Wegi Murder is My Business? He I read a quote from him. There's a pretty cool book Chuck called um Shots in the Dark, based on like a true TV documentary, I think, but it's it's a lot of crimes, the photography, but it's an

explanation about crime scene photography too. But there's a quote from from Ouiji where like gangsters in the forties and fifties, like the big Ones, they reveled in their notoriety, but it was the young punks who tried to cover up and pretend they weren't, you know, criminals. And he would always say to him, like, you just wait until you make it big, you punk, then I'll take your picture. So he's a tough guy. Really Yeah, no, I think

he's dead. He was working in the twenties to the fifties. Well, I mean he knows how old he was. He's immortal. He could be like really old. So crime scene photography, I don't have anything else. I don't either, pretty straightforward. If you want to see wegi's their first murder, it's pretty interesting. Um, you should type in crime scene photography in the search bar how stuff works dot com. This concludes are Um dexter Lovin series Valentine Week series of

crime and documentation. Indeed um And since I said search bar, that means chuck. Of course, it's time for listener mail. Yeah, we're doing a shout out and now I say we never do them, but we're kind of doing them more. The only reason I'm doing this is because this, uh, this lady has been writing me since last summer August. I think, how do you really make them wait her birthday shout out? No, she broke me in August for for the stud's birthday, which is now. So I thought,

you know, persistance pays off. Sarah So her boyfriend, his name is Graham Baker, and he is turning, I believe, tomorrow, and she says she's collecting birthday greetings and he's such a super fan that she thought, I think. He actually said if I ever received anything from Josh and Chuck would probably lose my mind. So hopefully he's going crazy right now. And she said, here's some information about him that you should read. He's turns twenty five on February eighth.

He's doing his Masters in Religious Studies at McMaster University in Canada, Ontario, Canada, and it's going to complete his thesis this summer. You need some encouragement, she says, So keep on plugging away there, Graham. He's originally from Edmonton. Josh calls Calgary as home and is in Hamiltons until summer. That's a lot of information, she says, I live in Calgary. Oh there's more. Is this social security number in there? Now? Uh? They both listened to stuff Mom never told you and

stuff you should know on their road trips. Nice He lived in Prague for four months to study abroad. Very cool. He really likes Star Trek, he's really funny. And his two favorite bands yes, Henry Clay People, Nope, the band No, those are my two favorite bands. Um, Jimmy Cliff now Wilco in the National Todd run gren Man, Todd run gren So Graham, happy birthday, dude, and tell Sarah to quit emailing us. This has been going on for months. I think you can reasonably block her now. Yeah she's gone.

But um yeah, Happy birthday, Doude and thanks for listening. Good luck with that religious studies. Happy birthday, Graham and Sarah. That was very kind of you. So um, if you have a birthday request, birthday shoutout request, don't send it. You can send us something else though, And if you do, go ahead and email us at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast

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