The Scene of Crime: Web

The Scene of a Crime




Photography is used as a forensic instrument to record evidence at the scene of a crime. However the aim is to produce an 'objective' photograph, which can sometimes can be produced and received as something else.

Arthur Felling (1899-1968), known also as Weegee, after the Ouija board, due to his prompt arrival at the scenes of crimes. The work that Weegee produced between the 30's and 60's  inspired comics and gangster films all over the world.






Source: http://www.amber-online.com/exhibitions/weegee-collection/detail

You can see in Weegee's photos that there is a perspective, we are looking from a persons point of view (Weegee's) giving us a biased view of the crime or criminal. He had an wonderful way of capturing the scene of the crime, with an element of beauty and style. Paying attention to things like the reflections in mirrors and the framing in the car window, changing peoples view of the crime scene.








http://www.slate.com/slideshows/arts/weegee-murder-is-my-business-at-icp.html




Inspired by Weegee, photographers have continued to capture crime scenes in a similar way, giving the dark and what one would think should be unbiased and unemotional images an aesthetic beauty. These photos slowly become more focused on the detail in the composition and the lighting and shapes than that of its original forensic origin.
Photographers such as Paul Seawright and David Farell, produced a series of work based around old crime scenes.

Seawright went back to the places where sectarian murders took place some time after and photographed them. Using text from paper reports at the time he placed it underneath his images to explain to the viewer that these are more than just images of places. The images allow us to be in the photo, viewing it from Seawrights point of view, which becomes more and more sinister as you look at them for longer periods of time.

Paul Seawright -'Sectarian Murders' 1988

 These images draw a close connection between the scene of the crime and the crime itself. The sinister tone, shows that these places are still after so many years absorbed by a sense of a process of an event. Charged with a sense of history and context.

Unlike Weegee's we are not shown the crime it's self so the text at the bottom allows us to recreate the crime scene in our minds, which feels quite unnatural and apocalyptic.

http://www.paulseawright.info/sectarian2.html




David Farrell followed the work of Paul Seawright and produced a project called
'Innocent Landscapes' - 
He produced a series of work, made at the 'sites of the disappeared.' They are of the burial places were 8 people were 'disappeared'(murdered and buried) by the IRA in the 70's and 80's. Like Seawright his photographs are haunted by a sense of happening in both a historically political and personal way. Thus giving the viewing a strange familiarity with the landscape.

http://www.galleryofphotography.ie/exhibitions/davidfarrell/sections/intro.html




His photos are supported with marked maps, indicating the precise place the bodies were buried. Giving the images a more forensic, crime style. This is not what we get when we first look at the images alone, due the bright colour and quite often picturesque scene.

Todd Maisel

-a crime photographer from the New York Daily News. He has quite a controversial way of working which provokes the viewers. He arrives promptly on the scene of crimes and sometimes gets up closer than the police. He often tweets his photos after sending his chosen image to the NY Daily News.

You can see that Maisel was heavily influenced by Weegee, using his fast approach of arriving on the scene and working closely with the police. His style is similar in that he captures what is going on around the crime scene not just the deceased or the criminal. He includes the people that arrive on the scene and the crowds that begin together and there responses to the crime.

 

 

Chasing Crime With a Spot News Photographer Tuesday, January 24, 2012 By Stephen Nessen

“I look for those nuances, those moments when people are not ready to see, or the perpetrators trying to hide,” he said. “You try to get their personality out of the photo, that’s always a pretty important thing.” - Tod Maisel



http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2012/jan/24/chasing-crime-spot-news-photographer/