Forensic Photography: A Practitioner's Guide

6 The Photography of Injuries

6.1 Overview

The photography of injuries, like the photography of latent marks, can often be one of the most photographically satisfying in terms of results. Even the simplest of techniques, such as cross-polarised lighting, can have a dramatic visual effect on the clarity of the injuries being recorded.

However, with the advent of cheap, easy-to-use digital cameras, the role of the forensic photographer in the capturing of injury marks is often seen as less important or even unnecessary. After all, it is easy for an officer to pick up the office camera, point and shoot and get a usable result … but is it? [1] Although the image captured may on face value appear to be correctly exposed and in focus, the real question is actually how useful it is. In other words, does it actually show them what they hope to see, the shape or pattern of a weapon or implement?

The reality is that many injuries hold information about their causation that is not always readily or easily seen [2] (Figure 6.1). It is our task as forensic photographers to make every attempt to unlock this information photographically [3].

Figure 6.1 A burn to the arm photographed using (a) white light (b) cross-polarised light, (c) reflected ultraviolet, (d) induced fluorescence, (e) infrared.

The question for us is: what technique should be used to undertake the photography of the ...