Evidence tells the story to forensic photographer
Dead men tell tales.
Their story is told by the style of shoes they wear. Their story is the keys in their pocket, a receipt in their wallet, their iPad email.
Randy Anglin looks at these things. They bring details into a person’s everyday life.
Anglin served with the Arizona Highway Patrol Bureau and Vehicular Crimes Unit for 15 years. Depending upon the case his work included checking the pockets of a deceased man or opening the purse of a dead woman, looking for something, anything, to bring sound to somebody’s silence.
Since 2005, he has been a private investigator and evidence photographer in Phoenix.
“I am a professional looker,” said Anglin, 47.
“Photography means I share what I see. I am drawn to life.”
He takes pictures of death.
“My people are blue,” he said.
When a life ends Anglin’s work begins. His job as a forensic photographer is to fill in the blanks. He helps find out what happened and how. In looking out, he looks in. Was this an accident or crime? The body a cold consequence of drunken driving or the bile of human vile?
“It’s like doing a giant Sudoku puzzle,” Anglin said.
He can be at a scene for hours. At first he stands back. He takes photos to show the full picture, setting the scene and circumstance. Then he studies close. He uses different lighting, covering the spectrum from ultraviolet to visible to infrared. He shoots from different angles. He is exacting. He has to be.
He knows a camera captures what a human eye cannot see. He also knows the scene is fleeting. This isn’t scripted like CSI on TV. Evidence must be photographed, preserved like an insect in amber, as the setting is soon gone.
His pictures go to detectives and scientists, maybe to a blood-spatter expert or a fingerprint specialist. Whoever is trying to answer questions looks at the pictures. Sometimes the photos are shown in court, seen by a judge and exhibited to a trial jury.
“I don’t work for the prosecution,” Anglin said.
“I work for evidence. Shed light on the facts.”
He is the messenger. As a forensic photographer the pictures pack a powder keg of information. He can’t rewrite yesterday. He can connect dots tomorrow. Consider a case. A car with four occupants rolled. The right-rear tire had blown. Two adults in the front seat were thrown. Man and woman, husband and wife, died. Their two children in the back seat lived.
Anglin’s work on the case involved accident reconstruction. He noticed a small circle on the dust covering the exterior of the car. Curious, he took a picture. The circle was made by the lid of a drink cup from a fast-food place. The family had been to the restaurant. When the car rolled, the cup was tossed. Anglin included in his report photos of the circle mark on the car as well as of the drink lid on the ground.
“Years later, the case is in civil court,” he said. “I get a call from an engineer. ‘What’s with the circle on the car?’ he said. I happened to have a disc that still had the picture. I looked. I never saw it then, but I could see it now: There was a valve stem next to the lid.
“It became a mission for me to find that valve stem. I went to the location. I found the valve stem with a metal detector. You think ‘Well that could be any valve stem.’ But this one matched the tire. There had been a defect in the stem.”
The tire blew. The driver couldn’t control the car. The vehicle rolled.
“I didn’t know when I was photographing it that something critically important would show up years later,” Anglin said. “The satisfaction is giving my all, obtaining the desired outcome.
“Not every day works. I try to get a footprint or that single drop of blood and I don’t get it.
“You’ve heard of haboobs?” he said, referring to intense dust storms common in the Arizona desert. “I’ve been photographing when a haboob hits. Evidence is gone just like that.”
He can’t control wind or rain, daylight and darkness. What he can do is improve and adapt. He comes prepared. He carries five extra batteries for his cameras. He takes three extra cameras.
Besides being a forensic photographer, he teaches forensics in college. He visits Calgary to help present a seminar on forensic photography to fire investigators. He also does criminal surveillance. He hides a camera among rocks or inside a beer can. He is a sly guy.
Anglin has been into photography since his early teens. He likes texture and shades. He paints with light. Light is a messenger. For him, forensic photography is science and art. He can work 100 hours in a week, standing, kneeling, twisting, finding.
“Dirt time,” he said. “If you’re not laying on the ground, you don’t see it.
“I recently spent five, six hours photographing a footprint. The next day I was so sore I couldn’t walk. I took Ibuprofen.” He laughed. “If you see it the camera sees it better,” he said. “What a lens doesn’t have is a mind. I feel it.” He lives it.