Forensic Photography: A Practitioner's Guide

Foreword

Of all the forensic disciplines forensic photography is the most misunderstood and the least recognised. In this book Nick Marsh, one of the world's leading professional forensic photographers, sets the record straight. From the perspective of a practitioner he manages to convey the significant contribution that forensic photography makes to the investigation of crime and the administration of justice. Forensic photography is an area of expertise that, as with other forensic disciplines, can make or break a case and it has a critical role in other visual forms of forensic evidence such as fingerprints, footwear and tool mark examination. No amount of expertise in these other disciplines can compensate for a poor source image for comparison. Forensic photography is one of the most challenging forensic disciplines and Nick shows how a detailed understanding of light, digital imaging and a problem-solving approach is at the heart of this profession. The move to digital capture, rather than wet film, only changes the tools available to the forensic photographer not the inherent expertise and skill that is required to recover forensic evidence through photography.

I have had the pleasure to work with Nick and to support his development of this important area. I commend this text to all those involved in the forensic profession with the hope that it provides the basis to establish forensic photography as a specialist field in its own right.

Gary Pugh, OBE Director of Forensic ...