David Larraguibel joined the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service in 2011 where he developed a modernized methodology for photographic documentation of post-mortem examinations, specializing in the use of cross-polarization and infrared photography, as well as establishing an information infrastructure to manage large imaging datasets. He also spent a year as a Forensic Identification Support Technician with the Ontario Provincial Police where he provided training to Scenes of Crimes Officers on the use of field expedient photographic imaging equipment. David is currently researching the spectral and chemical characteristics of human tissues and the decompositional process, tattoo inks and firearm discharge residues.
Originally aired on: March 9, 2023
David Larraguibel joined the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service in 2011 where he developed a modernized methodology for photographic documentation of post-mortem examinations, specializing in the use of cross-polarization and infrared photography, as well as establishing an information infrastructure to manage large imaging datasets. He also spent a year as a Forensic Identification Support Technician with the Ontario Provincial Police where he provided training to Scenes of Crimes Officers on the use of field expedient photographic imaging equipment. David is currently researching the spectral and chemical characteristics of human tissues and the decompositional process, tattoo inks and firearm discharge residues.
Originally aired on: March 9, 2023
00;00;30;05 - 00;00;55;23
Eugene
Hi everyone, welcome. This is Eugene here, and this is going to be episode 80 of Forensics Talks today. My guest is David Larraguibel. He's a forensic photographer at the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. And we are going to be speaking to him about the role of photography in post-mortem examinations. So, David Larraguibel. He is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design University as part of the integrated media program.
00;00;56;02 - 00;01;25;28
Eugene
And he built his expertise in photography, digital imaging and content production within creative industries in a variety of technical roles. He joined the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service in 2011, where he's responsible for photographic documentation of post-mortem examinations specializing in the use of cross polarization and infrared photography. He's also provided training for forensic pathologists and technical teams, sexual assault nurse examiners, municipal, provincial, federal and military police services.
00;01;26;08 - 00;01;51;27
Eugene
And he's currently examining the potential for use of computational photography to generate 3-D representations of forensic findings at autopsy, as well as for the post-mortem identification, reconstruction and virtual archiving of human remains. Now, David has been a past speaker at the Forensic Photography Symposium, which I held. The first one was a couple of years ago, and his first talk was on cross polarization, Infrared UV.
00;01;52;09 - 00;02;10;19
Eugene
But really focusing on the cross-polarization methods, which I want to touch on today. But this past year, he was the keynote speaker, and I think he did a really great job of sort of highlighting what some of the challenges are in post-mortem photography. So, let's get to it. I'm going to bring him in here. And there he is.
00;02;10;20 - 00;02;11;13
Eugene
Hey, Dave, how you doing?
00;02;11;24 - 00;02;13;13
David
Hey, thanks for having me, Eugene.
00;02;13;23 - 00;02;21;05
Eugene
All right. Awesome. Well, look, Dave, we've. We've known each other, I guess, since, I don't know, it's been, like, ten years or something like that.
00;02;21;10 - 00;02;22;10
David
We met in 2012.
00;02;22;16 - 00;02;44;04
Eugene
Well, there you go. See, it's even longer. And, you know, I remember at the time when I met you, I knew there was something sort of special about you didn't have to do with your passion for photography, really. There are there are people that use photography as kind of part of their work. And maybe it's just another tool for them.
00;02;44;05 - 00;02;58;18
Eugene
But I always feel like with you, it's something that you've really taken to heart, something that you really run with, something you've dived in very, very deep. So is that something that started off like were you planning when you first were at school, Like this is what you were going to do?
00;02;59;02 - 00;03;28;16
David
No, no. It's, you know, getting into forensic photography, the my passion was through the side door. I in high school decided pretty early on that I wanted to try my hand at being an artist kind of in technical fields. So, I attended. Okay. To you. It was just okay back then. So it wasn't a university downtown Toronto, and it was a hell of a ride.
00;03;29;00 - 00;04;09;29
David
We you know, we discussed death on theoretical and abstract basis, you know, a lot of critical theory, cultural theory, trying to really understand what the meaning of death is and its application to art. But while I was there, my focus was shifting towards art and technology and strangely enough, the human body. So during my thesis year, I my thesis turned out to be focusing on using photography to document the body and the idea that it's a record keeper, both physical and emotional psychological trauma.
00;04;10;11 - 00;04;47;24
David
And I did not in any way anticipate that that was the direction I'd wound up taking like ten or 15 years later. But when I had returned to Oxford to complete the degree portion, because like I said, it wasn't it was in the university at the time. I just happened to be passing through the through the admissions office and saw on the job board that there was a posting for forensic photographer and I was in the process of pivoting away from the creative industries like I'd worked for a few startups, technical roles, like a technical director, video editor, those kinds of things.
00;04;47;24 - 00;05;04;29
David
But just I wasn't feeling it. It was in the end; it really did keep coming back to making money. And I just I wanted to find a way to apply what I was learning and what I'd done to public service. And so, it just very serendipitous. I saw it applied, but it really didn't think I had gotten it.
00;05;05;00 - 00;05;30;19
David
And so a month and a half later and at that point discovered that I would be the first forensic photographer for the province of Ontario in that role in the newly minted ops. So it was a big surprise, but it was, I guess, in a way, it was it was an interesting way to bring it all back together.
00;05;30;20 - 00;06;04;22
David
So, my passion for photography, one that kind of really taking off at that point, I was leveraging it more for personal expression as a way to kind of, I guess, talk about the things I was interested in while doing my other day job. And this was the first time I was able to merge them together and but getting in that door was I mean, I was an artist among scientists, you know, I was by far the least educated person in the room, and the learning curve was pretty steep.
00;06;04;23 - 00;06;05;28
David
So. Yeah.
00;06;06;09 - 00;06;28;09
Eugene
Yeah, yeah. Well, that was I guess I would have been at the old building when. When. Yes, when we first met. Yeah. And then. And now of course you got like a new facility and stuff like that. So, you know, ten years is, is a decade. And I'm just curious about maybe some of the changes that have happened with your role, if you're doing the same thing, know different responsibilities, like what's sort of happened in those in those ten years.
00;06;28;17 - 00;07;03;14
David
Oh, where to begin? I mean the big change actually happened two years before I started in oh nine was the creation of the Ops. So that the creation came about through legislative change. There was a big court case. I won't get into it too much here, but if anyone's interested in Googling the inquiry surrounding the appeals process and investigation of a particular pathologist who had testified as an expert witness in a field, he was not qualified to testify.
00;07;03;14 - 00;07;28;04
David
And a lot of people went to prison, were wrongly convicted and are now chief was one of the primary people responsible for testifying in this process. And so, as a result of the gouge inquiry, the report was written and legislative changes were implemented and the creation of the office as a separate body from the office of the chief coroner.
00;07;28;04 - 00;07;57;07
David
So an independent but closely related organization was formed and so when the office was created drawing on those legislative requirements, one of the things that was found was the increased need for better readability. And so they hired a photographer. And so the changes really was that a photographer existed at all. And prior to that it was just police and so because of that, the photography that existed for each case was spotty.
00;07;58;02 - 00;08;17;24
David
It was not consistent. There weren't there was no routine set of photos documented for every case. And so right off the bat, you know, me asking is, so what do you need? Because I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I know how to take a photo, but I don't know what you as an organization, I don't know what the public needs from me.
00;08;19;00 - 00;08;50;28
David
So one of the biggest changes was standardizing the processes. So, all the other lab processes were already in in, in progress of standardization. But photography, nobody there knew what they needed or what to do. And so that's kind of where I started to really leverage the technical and I guess engineering focused parts of my brain and applied it towards the creative aspects that I had spent years just developing on my own.
00;08;51;10 - 00;09;26;15
David
And so, the changes since then was we've got a new building. So also, one of the outcomes of that inquiry was dumping a ton of money into the death investigation system in Ontario. So that led to the creation of the forensic science and sorry forensic science of coroner's complex, the SCC. And so, a half billion dollar building that houses the Center of Forensic Sciences, the Office of the Chief Coroner, the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, Emergency Management Ontario and the Office of Fire Marshal.
00;09;26;15 - 00;09;53;16
David
So we all kind of work together in that building. And so that was one massive change is now we had access to resources. We were able to implement onsite magnetic resonance imaging or MRI computed tomography, and we were given the money that we needed to buy the equipment that we were going to use for the next potentially 50 years.
00;09;53;16 - 00;10;16;17
David
When the cases started scaling up to a point where I couldn't keep up anymore, we thankfully determined that a second photographer would be needed, so that was around 2015. So now I had to try and pivot to working in a team and we just continued to develop our processes and further refine how we were going to do them.
00;10;18;05 - 00;10;44;09
David
The inclusion, I guess, of additional types of photography. So our across polarization that started at the old building, but it didn't know how to use it yet and nobody, nobody knew what the hell I was doing. So they just kind of trusted that I was going to learn to implement whatever it was that I was doing. I was like I said, it was I was the artist among scientists, and they just kind of left me alone in that respect.
00;10;45;19 - 00;10;59;19
David
But when we were able to start delivering results with what we did, I think there was definitely more trust given to it, to the process. So, so changes are that we've grown, we've grown, we've already outgrown the building, actually.
00;10;59;28 - 00;11;00;07
Eugene
Yeah.
00;11;00;21 - 00;11;05;11
David
We're trying to find space, so we're up to four photographers now and that's still not enough.
00;11;06;06 - 00;11;26;10
Eugene
So, a couple of I guess there was a couple of weeks ago, the last episode I had Dr. Richard Shepherd, who is a pathologist from the UK, and, you know, he's even talking about, you know, pathologist role and kind of what he was doing. But, you know, in his in his books and, you know, as part of his work and even in the cases, there's always a photographer there like by his side.
00;11;26;10 - 00;11;50;26
Eugene
And you know in the in the room, you know, taking photos and assisting. But what isn't clear is exactly where that photographer is from. If it's actually somebody like you that's, you know, belongs to the pathologist service or if it's a police officer. And you raise a really good point, too, in the quality of the images, because in my case work, I've had those you know, those times where you get the autopsy photos and you cringe, you're like, who took these photos?
00;11;50;26 - 00;12;13;18
Eugene
Like, what were they thinking? So, you know, if the if the quality of what you're doing, you know, because you're there, you know, is sort of elevated, you know, those photos are so important afterwards because people use them not just for, hey, you know, hey, look or whatever. Sometimes they're used as a record for analysis, they're used at trials and things like that.
00;12;13;18 - 00;12;22;21
Eugene
So it's But are you sort of in a special position or are there other places that are doing that have the same sort of setup?
00;12;23;26 - 00;12;59;03
David
Well, strangely, in Ontario, we're currently the only service that has a specific role for a forensic photography technologist. That's what I'm what my role is called. The office is actually made up of several regional units. So we're at the FCC, so a lot of acronyms being thrown around where the PFA use the provincial forensic pathology unit. But there's other units in Kingston, London, C.S. Murray, Sudbury, Ottawa and some of the community hospital.
00;12;59;13 - 00;13;27;04
David
A lot of those are based at the community hospitals as well. We're the only one that has their own dedicated facility. It's my understand to my knowledge, but the staff and the number of cases is not sufficiently high enough to require a forensic photography technologist, I believe out in Nova Scotia, one of the main forensic pathology unit out there has two staff photographers.
00;13;27;04 - 00;13;53;11
David
I believe one is full time, one as part time. But apart from that, I don't know that anywhere else in Canada has what we have. And I mean in our numbers are disproportionately higher, I think, than everyone else as well. For our facility. We I mean, in Ontario there's about, give or take, 30,000 people that die every year, and about 30% of those 30,000 become coroners cases.
00;13;53;26 - 00;14;28;25
David
So they require an actual investigation. And then of that portion, 60% roughly come to us. So in those numbers, those are old numbers. So, you know, I don't know what they would currently be, but if they continue to climb, I don't see how they can avoid doing that for too much longer. Everywhere else, they the pathologist assistants which are the backbone really of the of the post mortem exam.
00;14;28;25 - 00;14;51;00
David
They do all the cutting. They do a lot of the heavy lifting. They take all the samples and in the absence of any other specialists, they're doing the photos, they're taking the bodies and out of the coolers. So in that way were where unique because we've put all the money into dedicated roles that that has specific functions.
00;14;51;19 - 00;15;19;24
Eugene
So, I want to read something to you. It was actually from a part of your abstracts that you submitted and it actually but it raises a really good point and I think it touches on kind of what you're saying here. And part of it says that, you know, the use of photography or the use of photography for the purpose of documenting post mortem examination has been in practice for several decades and for most of that time has been considered ancillary or secondary means of documentation of function to support findings identified and recorded through other means.
00;15;20;00 - 00;15;37;20
Eugene
By extension, the role of the photographer has also been secondary. An individual who used their knowledge and expertise in recording an image to support the investigation or medical opinion of the pathologist at the direction of the subject matter expert. The modern autopsy requires more. So, I was wondering if you could comment on that.
00;15;38;01 - 00;16;01;28
David
Yeah, that was a really long sentence and maybe a little bit pretentious, but I think there's value in saying that. I think, again, the fact that my role exists at all is a testament to the fact that we need better documentation from people who are trained in at least the use of the camera, if not the use of a camera for biomedical imaging.
00;16;02;12 - 00;16;34;01
David
So what what's required now is, I think, a photographer who has a good understanding of anatomy and physiology, trauma and can, you know, literally and figuratively focus their lens on subjects with their own understanding of what they're looking at. And they can be trying to look for things that maybe the pathologist can't see because they're not assisted by an air or an eye are capable camera or using cross polarization.
00;16;34;10 - 00;17;06;03
David
We see the photographers, we see thousands of cases a year, and we have kind of become accustomed to seeing things with a different eye and that, I think being able to leverage our ability in that way becomes a better investigative tool. We were able to think about things a little bit differently. We're able to get closer, we're able to find layered ways, I guess, of examining a particular finding.
00;17;06;03 - 00;17;30;07
David
So one example is the use of infrared or cross polarization as a survey tool, right? If it's just an ancillary process. Right. The doctor looks for something the pathologist assistant finds helps them find it. And once it's been examined and dissected, they'll call it the traditionally they would just call the photographer over the police photographer typically, typically and say, can you take a photo of that?
00;17;30;14 - 00;17;53;01
David
Okay, great. So now we've just provided photographic support for something that they already found. Right? So now we're just kind of the backup for a peer review a year later, six months later, by another professional. But what I'm suggesting is if we use it as a survey tool, we can actually be looking for things that can't be seen because the bodies to decompose or the bodies to burn or the skin is too dark.
00;17;53;13 - 00;18;12;21
David
And so if we're able to point out, hey, I don't know if you're able to appreciate this, but there's some bruising down here or there's a tattoo and this person's unidentified prior to using infrared photography, for sure. Absolutely. We were the cases were coming in and out of the facility without an ID because we had no way to see these things.
00;18;13;02 - 00;18;35;20
David
But now, as the photographer, we're able to identify what modalities are going to be suitable for this particular case. We can start thinking about it that way where we're constantly kind of asking ourselves, should we, you know, what lens are we going to use? What should we should we bother with our for this case? Or should we only use cross polarization?
00;18;36;19 - 00;18;58;13
David
Is it tattoos or particular color? We know that is not going to work or if the decomposition is a certain type, we know that cross for the cross. Sorry, cross polarization won't work. So we really need to think about it that way. So we're not just a secondary tool, we're not just a backup. We're actually trying to integrate ourselves into the investigative process.
00;18;59;15 - 00;19;23;14
Eugene
Okay. Well, let's talk about you. You mentioned decomposition, but I just want to bring up what some of the challenges are, because, I mean, you're dealing with all manner of death and some of them that are sort of difficult. So, you know, burdens, so people that are in fire, as you talked about, decomposition. So that could be that could be in water like a body that is, you know, completely wet and there could be other bodily fluids present.
00;19;23;20 - 00;19;38;02
Eugene
There could be, of course, liquids can cause reflections. And then all of a sudden you have just, you know, like, for example, I think you've mentioned once about competing tone and texture. So can you talk about some of the problems that the photographer has to face?
00;19;38;27 - 00;20;07;15
David
So when you've got, you know, in the case of, say, a body, that a death that has happened very recently, you know, within 24 to 48 hours before there's any likelihood of any, you know, of decomposition have set in or any animal predation or insect activity, there's a pretty good chance that what we see visually is also what the camera is going to see and vice versa.
00;20;08;00 - 00;20;34;18
David
But when you start dealing with cases where the individual is has very dark complexion, and it's possible that they may have tattoos. So the competing tone and texture is the tone is the color red, the tattoos dark and the skin is dark. So now where that had to in order for us to visualize it, we have to work our way through the noise of the dark skin or the dark skin may also be coming from decomposition artifacts.
00;20;34;18 - 00;21;12;28
David
So the skin suggests to turn green and blue and brown. And there's particular spectral characteristics that are maintained with skin and tattooing that we're able to get past, but not in white light. So we need to think about using another imaging modality to bypass that competing textures would be, you know, if you got something that's got very small, very small textured surface, say like a cirrhotic liver, and we want to we want to be able to document that.
00;21;12;28 - 00;21;33;26
David
But because of the texture of the surface of the liver, it was very bumpy. The reflections are also going to be very, very they're not going to be uniform. It's not going to be a flat reflection. So trying to find an imaging modality that will get us past the reflections so that we can actually see what we want to see, the structures, the underlying structures.
00;21;35;13 - 00;22;16;21
David
So that's really it is just trying to kind of think about what imaging modalities we have and how they relate to the subject we're going to photograph. So be it. Dark skin, highly reflective, you know, body pulled from water is going to have its own variety of issues, but it really is decomposition, dark skin, thermal damage and trying to find evidence of trauma, which is also often dark because bleeding becomes a dark, dark patch and, you know, tattoos, body markings, that kind of thing.
00;22;17;02 - 00;22;42;05
Eugene
Okay. Well, before we I want to ask you about cross polarization. I r U.V. and a sort of thing. But the two things that I'd like to cover before that are the detect that use the software and the hardware and the with the software. That might be easier to do. But what kind of what kind of things are you doing or utilizing in terms of or what kinds of things are you doing to the images after you've taken them?
00;22;42;05 - 00;22;46;08
Eugene
Are you are you doing anything with them or are they just raw images like.
00;22;46;22 - 00;23;16;01
David
We shoot raw, we shoot raw plus JPEG, but the JPEGs are just back up. So, everything we shoot is raw. We use an application called Adobe Lightroom. We as part of kind of the forensic realm, we don't alter the images, so we, we process. So anything that would have traditionally been done in it's in a darkroom, we light and we darken, we color corrects, we can crop, but we, we don't push pixels, we don't add or subtract anything.
00;23;16;01 - 00;23;42;22
David
And that's really where you draw the line is we don't modify the images. We are just non-destructive lih process the images and then create a an export a jpeg, which is what gets delivered to the pathologist and the stakeholders. So we always have, you know, our massive imaging archive. I think we're on a 40 terabyte rate and we're almost halfway full and everything's kept there.
00;23;42;22 - 00;24;08;20
David
But yeah, the processing is actually very little and the nice thing about like rumors, it does keep metadata, so it tells us what alterations have happened and that file, the metadata file travels with our images whenever they go to police or through any other FOIA request. We pass everything along so that if they need to recreate all the steps to get the same, to get to the same end point, they can do that.
00;24;09;14 - 00;24;28;20
David
So you had to the question of software, there's actually not much we that part of it is fairly easy. The more complicated thing is keeping track of where all the photos are going and making sure that the right photos are with the right cases. Hardware wise. I don't know if there was a specific thing you wanted me to talk about.
00;24;28;20 - 00;24;34;29
David
I did mention that I had all the equipment kind of ready if you wanted to take a Yeah.
00;24;34;29 - 00;24;54;04
Eugene
I think so. Like, and I don't want to, you know, it's like it's not a promotion for anyone sort of an analogy or device, but I'm just curious about the kit, you know, and what would you say, for example, would be like a minimum kit or standard that somebody should be having if they're going to be taking these kinds of photographs in the, you know, the autopsy room?
00;24;54;26 - 00;25;23;00
David
Yeah. You know, I think the kid is should pretty well be the same for just about any forensic professional with some outliers. But I think generally every kid should have this day and age at least a full frame camera, if not a full frame, then at least a modern mirrorless like 4/3 or something to that effect. But a full frame type camera professional level would be ideal.
00;25;23;11 - 00;25;47;14
David
A macro lens. We use a 50 mil, a zoom lens, 24 to 70, which is kind of the standard, but you can get it to go as high and low as you want. And then I would highly recommend using a handheld slash either connected to the camera by a single sync cord or a remote wireless remote of some kind.
00;25;48;05 - 00;26;18;05
David
And then that kind of is the basic kit everyone I think should consider having. The additional things that make it easier is if you can get a ring light for your flash, your macro flash, it allows you to get much closer without winding up with weird shadows. You get still very even light. And then if you really want to scale it up and get complex like we have, we we've applied a on our on our system back there.
00;26;18;18 - 00;26;54;22
David
We have a high temperature, linear, polarizing gel on the flash and then a circular polarizing filter on the lens, which we set up for across polarization. So they're set up basically orthogonal oriented to one another and then for the handheld flash. So this one right here, you see that big bubble on top. We don't use that at work, but it's something I recommend to police services that when you need more light but you still want it to be cross polarized, it's just a mechanism that you can attach the polarization gel to the top of the flash so you can handhold it.
00;26;56;16 - 00;27;24;23
David
And that's kind of that would be kind of the extended kit. And then for I.R., just having any infrared capable camera or a multi-spectral camera, a full spectrum camera, sorry, with an air filter cut off filter available for that particular lens and then an illuminator that you can just kind of carry around. You can bring in closer, you can angle it however you need to.
00;27;24;23 - 00;27;31;05
David
I mean, really, you could just kind of keep on going with each particular spectra and each type of finding.
00;27;31;21 - 00;27;38;16
Eugene
Okay, well, Gail's got a question here about, you know, the type of camera that you're actually using. So, I don't know if you can say or not, but. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00;27;38;16 - 00;28;05;24
David
I mean, it's definitely not a I'm not going to use it as a promotion when I started because all we had there was just a couple of folded up Nikon. So I said, you know, we can't keep using these. They're not going to provide the results you need, so what can we buy? I was just naturally assuming that we were going to go Nikon because everybody in policing seems to use Nikon and one of our senior staff was responsible for making that call.
00;28;05;24 - 00;28;22;24
David
So I don't know what do you use at home? And I just happened to have Canon and he said, Well, if you're more comfortable with canon, just get canon. And so that just kind of got the ball rolling down the hill. And so now we're probably about eight cameras deep. All of our lenses are camera canon and it was never intended to be either or.
00;28;23;03 - 00;28;44;25
David
Nikon is incredible, and I would have been 100% happy and capable of using Nikon. It just didn't matter at the beginning because we were starting from scratch. And at that time, we didn't know if there would ever be more photographers. So, it was the same reason we wound up on all Mac as well. It was kind of it was that trust of you.
00;28;45;02 - 00;29;12;23
David
You're the guy, you're the first guy, the first person. So, what do you use? And if that's what you would recommend, let's just do it. And but like I said, now we're several cameras and several computers deep and not that there's any need to jump in other direction. Canon's been great and I personally enjoy it. And so to answer the question is the ones that we use at work are Canon five D mark fours.
00;29;12;23 - 00;29;49;29
David
I proceed with what I've got running for the through my webcam right now is canon are six mirrorlesses. If you were going to serve from scratch right now or we're thinking about upgrading for your service or personally I would recommend mirrorless all the way. I'm always going to love a DSLR but they're just not as practical anymore and I think you get a lot more from the mirrorless that it's almost for the individual photographer, it's almost unquantifiable the changes that are going to take place because you're shooting mirrorless but other way.
00;29;49;29 - 00;30;06;04
David
I mean in terms of what brand of camera Nikon Canon Fuji has in an incredible system have worked with their systems so any one of those three I think that you'd be absolutely fine going with.
00;30;06;29 - 00;30;16;12
Eugene
Okay hey can you do a little bit of show and tell David the two lights that are behind you there. I'm just wondering if you could maybe explain what the difference between those two lights are and what your what you're using them for.
00;30;16;24 - 00;30;43;17
David
Yeah. So, these I don't use it. Work these I picked up personally because I want to head more into multispectral research. So this here is a in our entire floodlight which is peaks at 840 nanometer and it gives a really wide beam. So if you're doing a scene search, you don't have to worry about that little handheld illuminator like this.
00;30;44;22 - 00;31;10;05
David
This will give you a lot more coverage. And then for Ultraviolet, I've got this is a handheld illuminator and this will do 395 and 365. But this is only 365, which is actually better because it's further out of the visible range. It means you don't with your eyes to see very much of the original light. It's still hitting your eyes.
00;31;10;05 - 00;31;34;10
David
It can still damage it, damage your eyes, but you're not seeing it. But what you're seeing is the fluorescence is casting off to shift. But what it's also great for and what I actually use it for more is U.V. reflectance. So when you're not trying to get things to fluoresce, but you're just trying to see what absorbs UV light, you can use that same light, the same in the same camera.
00;31;35;02 - 00;31;56;04
David
But if you've got a UV filter applied to a cut off filter that only allows you to see 365 and below, you're going to see actually a lot of things reflected that you wouldn't otherwise be seeing. I am covered in freckles and you can't really see them right now in white light, but in ultraviolet it looks like I'm burned.
00;31;56;21 - 00;32;19;23
David
And so using a light like that, you can use it for Halloween as well. And that's actually what it was, what it what it's sold for on Amazon. But because I knew specifically that it peaks at 365, I wound up getting that And it's been awesome. It's been fantastic. So I think that's about it for equipment just for a close up of anyone else wants to see.
00;32;20;15 - 00;32;42;28
David
This is the ring flash, right? So it just pops off and it's just got this right here is just a gel logistics on and with the circular polarizing filter on the front, it allows us to set it up in across polarized configuration.
00;32;43;00 - 00;33;01;20
Eugene
So let's talk about some of the techniques now. So, you got the equipment. We talked about the you know, some of the software that you're using. So, in this sort of industry right now that I'm seeing, there's U.V., there's air. Right. And then there's even cross polarization, which probably the holy trinity of from a forensic photographer, let's say.
00;33;01;28 - 00;33;22;25
Eugene
And I'm curious about the choices that you make when you're at the autopsy. Hey, I need to use this. I need to do that because, as you say, sometimes you can't see what it is that's there. Or maybe you understand that for a certain type of injury, you're like, Oh, you know what? I need to grab UV in this case because I might I might have a better chance of using it.
00;33;23;03 - 00;33;28;06
Eugene
So can you talk a little bit about the, you know, the decision process in your head about how you go through all this stuff?
00;33;28;26 - 00;33;57;07
David
Yeah, I mean, I, I do have a decision tree workflow that I started working on during my time with the OP that I am hoping to, and I've already expanded on it in kind of hoping to at some point publish it. But, but basically just the internal thought process is when we see when the body bags first opened and we see the decedent, you know, the first things that are going off is are they fair skinned?
00;33;57;07 - 00;34;37;21
David
Are they dark skinned? Do they have a do they have a lot of trauma? Are they covered in any kind of any grease or mechanical fluids? Are they decomposed? Are they burned? And depending on what the depending on what the how they visually present, that will help us determine what type of visualization we're going to go for. So, for example, if someone is closed in dark clothing, suspected gunshot wounds, they are they have a dark complexion, then we're going to go down one first.
00;34;37;21 - 00;35;02;29
David
We're going to we're going to be looking at the clothing using infrared because it's photographing dark clothing in in white light is pointless. So looking at an infrared will allow us to see in many cases, not all cases. It depends on the textile, but it will allow us to see if there's any gunshot residue, any patterns around any of the defects on the clothing where the blood might have pulled.
00;35;03;13 - 00;35;30;08
David
Once we remove that clothing and we're down to the skin now, if the individuals identified, tattoos are not a concern. So we don't need to continue going with I.R. for the purpose of searching the tattoos. But we will continue to use I.R. if we're trying to see if there's any gunshot residue around a defect on the skin. Skin has particular or spectral response in infrared and white light that we leverage.
00;35;30;28 - 00;36;00;12
David
Melanin is very reflective in infrared. So, what that means is where in white light melanin will absorb a lot of light and will be quite dark in infrared. It reflects much that light back. And so it becomes very light where tattoo ink and gunshot residue and many mechanical fluids, they retain that infrared absorptive property. And so when we go into infrared, the two basically separate from one another.
00;36;00;23 - 00;36;24;23
David
So, where they overlap their competing tone, tone and color, they separate. And so it allows us to kind of continue down an investigative path with a particular tool. However, if we're also trying to document trauma because, say, that individual was in a fistfight, you know, 2 hours earlier, now infrared isn't going to work because infrared and the way it interacts with the heat.
00;36;24;23 - 00;36;53;03
David
MCCRUM Or which is the main pigment that is responsible for the coloring of the hemoglobin myoglobin, it won't work anymore. The red that we're looking for in the bruising is now no longer visible. So we have to switch out from infrared and now move over to cross polarization because that will bypass the reflections from the condensation on the skin and actually get into the tissues and separate the dark skin from the dark bruising.
00;36;53;03 - 00;37;35;19
David
And so we're able to determine where those injuries might have happened and keep them separate from the tattoos. The tattoos also turn out fantastically brilliant in in cross polarization and actually retains a lot of the color information as well. But we use it for a different purpose. If there were, say, a different version of the story would be if an individual who was very fair skinned came in and there is some indication in the history that they may have been that they may have been confined or bound to restricted in some way, we can potentially use ultraviolet to look on the fair side of the skin.
00;37;35;19 - 00;38;05;00
David
Right where there's you can barely see any detail anyways because the blood is pulled all the way to the back. But if there's an injury on the anterior portion of the neck, we can use ultraviolet to see whether there was anything. And when I say potential, I really mean potentially because ultraviolet is very difficult, very difficult modality to use, but the potential for it is there where we can see if there's any managed surface disruptions in the skin that wouldn't otherwise be visible in white light.
00;38;05;00 - 00;38;26;11
David
And so, you know, I've got a couple of cases where that turned out to be the case where there was some scarification that happened on an individual's back and we could not make it out because it was being obscured by lividity. And lividity is the gravity dependent pooling of blood. And so because the lividity was so dark, infrared, it was just going to make it transparent.
00;38;26;11 - 00;38;44;13
David
So, whatever we were trying to see through the blood would also become transparent because the skin was so light colored going for cross polarization. That wouldn't help because that would only serve to increase the color and saturation of the blood, making it darker again, interfering with being able to visualize the damage, the scarring on the on the skin.
00;38;45;18 - 00;39;14;02
David
And so switching to ultraviolet, which was kind of a last ditch, it just jumped out. And so it was able to highlight the surface disruptions and we were able to actually make out an individual's name which had been carved into the decedent's back. And so in this way, the theoretical being able to find surface descriptions on the skin for the competing color and tone of their skin is very different than what we would be doing for dark skin or burned skin.
00;39;14;15 - 00;39;32;00
David
So that decision tree that you just that you were just showing, that's the process a very loosely and very quickly goes through in my head. But by no means, you know, it's not set in stone. It's changed probably ten times since I started it. But yeah, that's kind of the general idea.
00;39;32;22 - 00;39;44;17
Eugene
When we talk about infrared, we're talking about 850 nanometer range. And then on the or are you using different of filters or and what about on the U.V. range as well, like what are you using in terms of filters?
00;39;44;24 - 00;40;16;14
David
So for filters, the wavelengths we're using, when I first got the camera that we use for infrared converted, it was converted for 720 nanometer just because that's all they had. And so I had purchased some additional filters that we could apply to it, additional color filters for 820 sorry, 840 and 695 I believe. But at the end of the day, what we're looking for is so specific and both fall generally within the same range of 720.
00;40;16;14 - 00;40;44;05
David
So I we rarely use those additional filters and we just have a single illuminator. And if we're not using room light because there's sufficient air in the environment, if we need that additional boost of light, we use an 820 nanometer, 840 nanometer illuminator and that works just fine again for lighting. What we're looking for, there's a lot of research in there that really needs to be done.
00;40;44;05 - 00;41;08;16
David
I think there's a lot of information that could be sought out and kind of more clearly defined based on the wavelengths. But for our purposes, we're just we're doing a quick survey. A decision comes in, we're just doing a walk around to say there's a tattoo here, a tattoo there. There's what looks like a bruise in air that we can't appreciate in white light.
00;41;08;16 - 00;41;12;21
David
So maybe we need to take a closer look at that. And that's kind of how we're doing it.
00;41;13;05 - 00;41;32;04
Eugene
Okay. As a question from Elina here, so she's asking about do you follow certain standards when you're working or are you allowed to use any personal equipment for your source of light? I guess she's wondering if sometimes, you know, you don't have something available and you need something. And I'm also thinking about a lot of agencies globally that may not be well funded.
00;41;32;04 - 00;41;35;05
Eugene
Right. There are some people that are just Yeah, don't have a lot to work with.
00;41;35;15 - 00;41;59;16
David
Right. So in terms of standards if anyone's written one, I don't know of it. We definitely don't follow specific standards yet. I know that there's been papers published and I wish we had more time for that research, but we're such a high volume facility that we're just focused on operational requirements and just get it get it done in terms of using personal equipment.
00;42;00;02 - 00;42;29;15
David
I would say honestly, if it works, go for it. I've been working with some under funded services. One in particular, I don't want to name names because I don't know if they would appreciate that, but I've been working with one under-funded service in another part of the world where I was able to modify and send to them an infrared camera that would be suitable for their purposes.
00;42;29;26 - 00;42;55;19
David
And it didn't follow any standard. I just knew that this system would work. And I knew that they needed they needed an infrared camera that would allow them to visualize tattoos in the unidentified bodies that were coming in. And I would highly recommend that you get whatever equipment you can get your hands on, because at the end of the day, the reason we're doing this is in service to the public.
00;42;55;19 - 00;43;15;20
David
We're trying to get these people identified. We're trying to help the investigation. If there's a specific standard and you can't find it, then it's not a great standard. So, Elina, if there is specific equipment that you think you can get access to and it will work for your purposes, I would I would suggest just using it.
00;43;15;20 - 00;43;27;07
David
And if at some point down the road a standard comes into place or it becomes a standard that you yourself are creating, then all the better. But for now, just whatever works.
00;43;28;13 - 00;43;45;24
Eugene
Dave, I want to bring up a couple of images here if I can, and these are images that you've taken and if you can, there may be three maybe two or three or four we might be able to squeeze in here. But if you can briefly give us just sort of the challenge of the photo or the meaning of the photo and what's maybe what we're looking at, that that'll be great.
00;43;46;13 - 00;44;10;21
David
Okay. And I just have to say that I obviously can't discuss any case specifics. It's almost go without saying, but I'll do my best to describe it without getting too in-depth. So what we're looking at here is the posterior aspect of an eye. So in the upper right hand corner, you can see a pair of forceps and it's actually holding on to the optic nerve at the back of the eye.
00;44;11;02 - 00;44;41;21
David
And so this this I was I was opened at autopsy to look for the presence of possible retinal hemorrhages, which are present as is kind of small round, reddish spots that are overlapping some of the vessels there. And the reason this finding was relevant is this particular case, It was an individual of a child had died due to a fatal crush injury of the skull.
00;44;42;07 - 00;45;26;05
David
And unfortunately, the large object which caused that, that injury, it caused sufficient pressure in the skull and in the eyes to cause these retinal hemorrhages to appear. Our chief and this is very early on for me, so I barely even knew what I was looking at the time. But our chief at UST asked me to document these findings as well as possible because they were highly relevant to this case, because classically it was thought that these retinal hemorrhages would only appear in shaken baby syndrome and what he was trying to demonstrate was the photos that we know clearly that it can happen through other means, other traumatic means.
00;45;26;16 - 00;45;53;28
David
It was in a terrible accident. And you know, obviously a tragedy. But no one was criminally responsible. It was it was simply an accident. And so being able to demonstrate that finding in an accidental case was key to saying to other individuals that this particular finding, which was classically thought to only be from a particular mechanism, is actually possible through other means.
00;45;54;08 - 00;46;18;06
David
And so, when I took that photo, the difficulty of it was basically that these structures were floating. And once you pull them out of fluid, out of the vitreous, they just kind of collapse. And they were also very shiny. So we had to go through the process of submerging them and shooting them in the water. And the light had to actually come in from the side of the container in order to illuminate it properly.
00;46;18;06 - 00;46;21;05
David
So, it took about 20 minutes to get it properly.
00;46;21;16 - 00;46;33;05
Eugene
Yeah. Fortunately, people who are going to be listening to the podcast are not going to be able to appreciate the images. So I'm going to have to say, Hey, when you get a chance, just jump on the YouTube channel. But let let's talk about this one. This is a beautiful, beautiful photo here. What are we looking at?
00;46;33;12 - 00;47;12;06
David
So, this is blue ironstone on the metatarsal. So, foot bone, it's otherwise known as division. And so, these crystals are my understanding of the chemistry behind it is that these crystals form as a by-product of the chemical reaction between human tissue decomposing in a microenvironment of the iron rich water. And so what happens is when the decomposition products from tissue interact with the fresh water, it these crystals form and when they form, they're actually just white to clear.
00;47;12;17 - 00;47;43;05
David
And it's not until the crystals and whatever they're sitting on are exposed to air that they oxidize and turn blue. So the story behind this, I unfortunately can't get into it, but it's very interesting. It's historical even, and the microbes itself was it was very interesting. But yeah, what jumped out to me about it and again this is very early on was when our forensic anthropologist saw this and she said, I'm not sure what this is initially.
00;47;43;05 - 00;47;55;05
David
And she did find out. You said, I'm not sure what this is. Never seen it before and I'm not likely to see it again. That, to this day is still my clue. I need to take a photo of this because otherwise it's gone forever.
00;47;55;18 - 00;48;03;14
Eugene
Yeah, and that makes sense. Let me bring up another image here. But this one here, this looks like part of a mandible, but I can see it's darkened on one side. There.
00;48;03;14 - 00;48;36;29
David
Yes. So whenever we have whenever we have bodies recovered from a fire, there's a chance, depending on the severity of the fire, that the remains could be heavily disrupted, fractured. And in worst cases, they can be co-mingled with the remains of another individual. So part of the process for the forensic anthropologist is first of trying to separate the bones, the remains, the human remains from debris or remains of non the animal or what have you.
00;48;37;10 - 00;49;10;06
David
And once they're separated out, that becomes the jigsaw puzzle of trying to put them all back together and determine what body they belong to and do they fit together. So in this particular case, the upper and lower left mandible were charred and fractured and at some point separated and burned separately. And so when our forensic anthropologist was able to put them together, she asked me to document it, to basically illustrate to anyone else that although they appeared to be different, they've been burned separately.
00;49;10;06 - 00;49;17;11
David
They do physically fit together. And so the jigsaw puzzle of that particular bone is that they belong to the same the same body.
00;49;17;29 - 00;49;40;28
Eugene
Okay, I'm going to bring this one up here because and this one here is has a little bit of story behind it in the sense that this was for the Bio Communications Association, for which there are a lot of the people who were at the Forensic Photography symposium are so like Tom Vadnais and Kinsman, Gale Springs. So this was a this was a winner of a competition, right?
00;49;40;28 - 00;50;07;12
David
It was kind of a fluke. I hadn't heard about the BCA until I saw it come up on your feed this past summer, 2022. And I thought, Well, what a cool organization to be part of. So I applied to become a member and then I saw that there was a competition and had to go through a big long process of asking to see if we could even submit anything because my personal feeling up until this past year was I don't like the idea of using images of casework.
00;50;07;12 - 00;50;33;25
David
I mean, this is someone's loved one for a competition, but 11, I guess, 11 years on now, I realized that there's also nobody seeing what we do what we're capable of. And that in and of itself is also a shame that there is a beauty to what we're seeing. And so I applied for and asked for the opportunity to submit some images to kind of demonstrate what we do at the office.
00;50;33;25 - 00;50;58;11
David
And when I was granted permission, I submitted a bunch, and I was just happy to get anything in there. And so when I was informed that that actually won the premiere award for the biomedical category, in addition to three others, I was kind of blown away. So, this one in particular, cerebral reflections. What we're looking at in the center is the eventual surface of the underside of a brain.
00;50;59;04 - 00;51;26;24
David
And that accumulation of blood in the bottom portion is not supposed to be there. That's as a result of what's suspected at this time to be ruptured. Very aneurysm and it's kind of accumulated together in a clump because it's still in December under the act or it's in the subarachnoid space and so whenever a body is going through the examination process, each organ is pulled out and weighed separately.
00;51;27;03 - 00;51;44;14
David
So when they transfer the brain to the to the bore, I was already there waiting for the brain to wind up on the grocery table. And when I saw it in there, I just thought might make for an interesting photo. And I took the shot, forgetting actually, that it had the cross polarization set up already on the camera.
00;51;44;14 - 00;52;05;08
David
And so what happened was the reflection on the underside of the brain is nonexistent. You don't see any of the light being reflected from that surface. But the light became polarized as it bounced off and hit the side of the ball. And so that's why you only see the reflection of light from the ball and not the brain itself.
00;52;05;18 - 00;52;07;11
David
So just it was a photo opportunity.
00;52;08;06 - 00;52;42;11
Eugene
That's great. Great images here, all of them. Let me ask you about because I see we could probably talk to you already and in our heart almost. And I haven't even gotten through some of my questions here. But I want to ask you about the scalability of what you guys have done at the Olympia. So, for example, you know, you said you started off by yourself, and I'm assuming that a lot of people are probably going to be in that situation that just, you know, the satellites, they work on their own, but when we talk about scalability, I mean, I don't just mean, you know, there's now three or four people, but also what
00;52;42;11 - 00;52;58;23
Eugene
happens when you have some kind of a massive disaster, you have some kind of a massive shooting, you know, and you have to deal with a very large number of images, with a number of different people. Can you talk about some of that?
00;52;59;08 - 00;53;22;27
David
So, yeah, I'd love to. I just want to preface with I haven't received any formal training in mass fatality yet, and it's definitely an area I'm very interested in pursuing more training, but scaling it from what we do internally. Whenever I've discussed our set that we use at the UPS with individuals who have undergone that training, the ears kind of perk up when I tell them, Yeah, all the shooting that we do, it's wireless.
00;53;22;27 - 00;53;42;22
David
As we shoot at each table, the images are being sent to our imaging server where we can process them remotely. So, we don't need to be in our office, we don't need to be where our server is. We never have to take the cards out of our camera. The images are basically backed up on the card and we can back those up whenever we need to down the road.
00;53;42;22 - 00;54;21;00
David
But it's all happening wirelessly, and everything that we're sending from our camera to our system is being tagged with the camera. It's coming from copyright information. And we can even scale that up theoretically to include GIS information as well. So I got to thinking that we went from using three cameras or four cameras and pulling the card out in this really slow, inefficient method where it was prone to overwriting particular files because it happened to be named the same to based on Miami-Dade's 1112 year old document that I was given by Heidi Nichols years ago.
00;54;21;09 - 00;54;42;09
David
I this the system that we use now on that essentially and what it allows us to do is our cameras communicate to our system by FTP locally. So it's not over the Internet, it's just on an internal network, but it allows us to just running gun and we just shoot and it's automatically being sent when we have the time.
00;54;42;09 - 00;55;18;14
David
We come back and process the photos by remote remotely accessing a computer in a different part of the building. And so what I got to thinking was scalability. If we needed to deploy eight of these or ten of these or, you know, a dozen, 20 of these cameras to the field at the site of mass, a plane crash or something to that effect without having to continuously run the cards back for processing, having an additional person having to back all those cards, all those cards up and manage the images.
00;55;19;02 - 00;55;41;18
David
I am kind of trying to work on a framework for being able to do this in a much more structured way that's scalable with each portion of the process broken up by the roles and duties that are needed for that particular thing. So the field photographers don't have to worry about getting the camera and getting the card back to the processing station.
00;55;41;27 - 00;56;05;05
David
There are already being transferred wirelessly. The ID people are running their own, their own system, cataloging their own images, being sent into the same system, but they don't need to be interacting with anyone else. It doesn't need to be centralized through any particular person or role. It's all being fed into the same system. And with the appropriate level of infrastructure applied to it.
00;56;05;05 - 00;56;06;28
David
I think it can it can scale up pretty well.
00;56;07;26 - 00;56;26;15
Eugene
Okay. You just mentioned before you hadn't been trained for mass casualty, but that brings up another topic, which is training. And so what is your impression about the type of training that most people receive when it comes to photography.
00;56;26;15 - 00;56;59;27
David
Trying to be diplomatic about this subject? I think it's insufficient and I feel for the officers I've trained because they do this job in the field under a lot of pressure with the expectation that these photos are going to be perfect every time, and the level of training that they receive is not sufficient to meet that expectation. My understanding is that they're trained how to use their firearm much more frequently and required to validate or to requalify on that every year.
00;57;00;11 - 00;57;19;25
David
But once they're taught how to use a camera, there's no there's no follow up to that. When I started in, I was asking police officers, So why do you take those photographs or how do you take that particular photo that you're doing? The response I got was, Oh, this is just what my training officer showed me. But there's no backup for why you did it.
00;57;19;25 - 00;57;39;07
David
You know, there's no well, if you're noticing that that particular image is always dark, why aren't you adjusting it? And the response is we don't really know how. You know, we don't. We don't know what we're doing wrong. And so I what I one of the things I'm hoping to do next is this really push more towards training.
00;57;39;21 - 00;58;04;12
David
So just trying to get as much information about what we do our small slice of the pie, but also the use of a camera in general out to police officers and other stakeholders, sexual assault examiners. I clinically this is a big deal like they need they need better support and photography training. They're dealing with victims that can still be helped.
00;58;04;12 - 00;58;20;14
David
You know, and it's awful when the photos that that they're able to take are insufficient to be used in in criminal proceedings. So it's kind of getting to a point where I feel almost personally responsible now. So I'm just trying to get it out there.
00;58;21;03 - 00;58;32;17
Eugene
And are you in there as part of your role as a photographer? Does the agency support the training sometimes or do you do some separately on your own? Like there's.
00;58;34;04 - 00;59;05;04
David
Again, to be diplomatic. There is a degree of support that happens within the forensic pathology field. So if other forensic pathology services are specifically acting, asking training in forensic post-mortem photography, yes, it's granted. But to train police, that's not technically part of our role. So, there's support in that. Yes, we'll give you the time you need to do it, but it's not something we're actively encouraged to do through our job.
00;59;05;04 - 00;59;29;19
David
And again, a lot of it comes down to operational needs. We just we're so busy that we barely have the time to do the work we need to do. So. So whenever I can run courses, they ran, of course, last year. I'm hoping to do a couple more this year. I'm going to be giving a lecture. It'll fire I Yeah, whatever training, whatever training comes up.
00;59;30;00 - 00;59;37;24
Eugene
Ring of Fire Ontario Forensic Investigators Association, that's a conference that's up in Dubois. That me? I don't remember the date now.
00;59;38;28 - 00;59;44;07
David
And they're on May 4th for the day and that's taking place now or this year.
00;59;44;15 - 00;59;54;29
Eugene
Okay. So, I want to ask you about research. I want to ask you about what kinds of things you're working on right now and looking forward and ahead. Like, what's next for you? What kinds of things are you sort of diving into right now?
00;59;55;19 - 01;00;20;27
David
The next big thing for me and I think the next big thing really in forensic photography is computational photography. I mean, this is kind of your bread and butter. I think that's a point. That's an aspect of the field that we're really missing out on. And it just comes down to we just don't have the time. So, I'm trying to carve out the time for myself to learn more about how we could apply computational photography to post mortem exams, but kind of more holistically.
01;00;20;27 - 01;00;56;21
David
What I'm looking for is these three general areas that I want to focus on is pre autopsy during autopsy and post autopsy. And for pre autopsy, it's enhanced death scene photography. So putting more of what we do at the post-mortem, that knowledge, putting it in the hands of the police officers and the investigators responsible for those investigations, that means know expanded spectrum surveys for clinical and post mortem scenes as well as applying some of those aspects to shooting in blood scene if they're applicable during autopsy.
01;00;57;07 - 01;01;33;10
David
What I think where it'll happen first, hopefully is with us. But again, really solidifying the idea of an expanded spectrum survey. Before we start our photography, we I'm hoping to be able to integrate 3D multispectral scanning at some point, you know, drawing on the expertise of saw in out in Zurich and trying to take the multispectral photography, but push it up to the 3D level and creating models that we could at some point merge with our images.
01;01;34;16 - 01;01;58;02
David
And one kind of incidental benefit to this that I hadn't considered because we do so much of this, we I don't want to say we become numb because we definitely don't, but we become accustomed to seeing the these kinds of things that people that have to review these cases and especially who have to look at them in court, they're not used to seeing what we see.
01;01;58;02 - 01;02;30;12
David
And it's unreasonable for us as the investigators to expect them to see what we see and not suffer because of it. So, there's been an increasing push. And I think Doctor, Dr. Alfredo Walker has addressed this in the past, saying that there's an increased need for 3D representation, you know, not photographs, but sanitized versions of what we see that just basically illustrate the anatomy and the particular injury without all the blood and the gore and the violence associated.
01;02;30;22 - 01;02;54;03
David
So that for me, again, means a lot to be able to kind of take that away from and take that potential for injury, away from people who don't do what we do by introducing computational photography and then post autopsy the 3D scanning of remains for archiving. We have a lot of we have a lot of unidentified remains that we're trying to work through.
01;02;54;03 - 01;03;15;17
David
So I was thinking it would be great if we could create a 3-D archive of these remains instead of two dimensional and also for identification. You know, again, kind of blue skying it if you've if you've got a plane crash where the decedents are all from another country, we're not going to have any of the records here.
01;03;15;17 - 01;03;40;14
David
But if we can produce 3D scans of the individuals of the dentition of other relevant identifying features and get those 3D models as opposed to two dimensional photographs, which are sometimes, as you well know, are very difficult to interpret, especially under stress. That would be, I think, a great thing we can do. And then beyond that, it also just keeps coming back to training for training and research.
01;03;40;23 - 01;04;04;13
David
My I had a whole sheet of training and research ideas that I want to talk about today, but there's a lot there. There's a there's stuff I haven't even touched on. But yeah, it really it just comes down to training. Like what more can we do with the tools we have? And if we don't have the tools, what tools do we need to see more?
01;04;04;28 - 01;04;38;29
Eugene
Okay. Another question that I want to ask you, which had to do and you sort touched on it here about, you know, the fact that some of these images and such, you know, people are not used to seeing, but how do you handle the, you know, the graphic nature of just being at the autopsy, seeing what you have to see, and sometimes just the trauma and, you know, working with obviously children or whoever happens to come by the that it's been a topic of discussion in some of the previous talks last week with Doctor Dr. Richard Shepherd, another one that I did with Douglas Young talking emotional wellness.
01;04;38;29 - 01;04;41;07
Eugene
Right. So how do you how do you manage that?
01;04;42;16 - 01;05;08;27
David
I mean, there's the how do I personally manager versus as soon as an organization on an individual level. You know I guess we'll start with the organization as an organization, the kind of work we do, it's in a controlled environment. You know, we there's no there's no sirens, You know, there's no there's no people screaming. You know, there's no distress.
01;05;08;27 - 01;05;37;20
David
And the pressure of being actually at the death scene is not there for us. And so, we kind of we roll with that and knowing that we ourselves are safe from the primary, the primary risk of the scene. And so, by the time receive the decedent, you know, therapy's already been applied. The injuries are still very, very visible.
01;05;37;20 - 01;06;03;16
David
I mean, of course, they're going to they are what they are. And for the most part, being in that controlled being in that controlled environment with your colleagues is able to provide us a degree of safety and security mentally and physically. But what I've realized over the years is that while you're able to manage them on an individual basis, it's the sheer volume.
01;06;03;16 - 01;06;23;26
David
I think that for me personally, as has become the difficult part to manage, you know, you build up a certain level, a certain threshold of every case is awful because someone's had to die for you to have your job, you know, for you to be able to do your job. And so in that in that respect, every case is awful.
01;06;24;14 - 01;06;53;27
David
But there's certain what I call breakthrough cases where when you see them, you know that this particular case is going to stick with you and you may never forget it. And those cases take an additional level of management, I guess, for lack of a better term. We all have our ways of compartmentalizing, and I think there's a lot of external factors which come into play for our ability to appropriately compartmentalize what we see.
01;06;54;11 - 01;07;23;00
David
But when we get those breakthrough cases and, you know, it's going to be different for everyone for me, definitely it's children. I've got three of my own. And so when you see the things that have happened to other people's children, it's heartbreaking and it can become very difficult to manage. So going from an organizational standpoint, a lot of it comes down to we're just there for one another, not in any formalized way.
01;07;23;00 - 01;07;48;14
David
But I think if anyone is having a difficult time managing what we're doing, I would hope that we would be able to support one another. But strangely enough, as of yet, as an organization, we don't have any formalized process for preventative support or post-incident support. We have phone numbers we can call. We have, you know, other processes we can follow.
01;07;48;14 - 01;08;13;10
David
But it's not. I feel like there's we could probably be doing more. And then on an individual basis, like I said, you know, you handle it until you can't. And for me I 20 tail end of 2020 was particularly bad. And there were a couple of cases that that impacted me much more severely than I had anticipated.
01;08;13;19 - 01;08;33;00
David
Yeah. And, you know, stress leave is what you got to do sometimes. And, and then you just find ways to kind of cope with it and move forward and. Yeah. And hope that next time something like that happens, you have a better set of tools to manage it.
01;08;33;16 - 01;08;51;20
Eugene
Yeah. Well, it's a big topic. It's, it's really important that these days I think people are under a lot of stress as it is sometimes. Sometimes it's not even the case or sometimes it's management or, you know, our colleagues or the work environment or whatever, right? So that sometimes that can be difficult to manage too. But David and I put up your LinkedIn profile here.
01;08;52;01 - 01;09;07;10
Eugene
All right. Well, look, folks, if you want to get a hold of David, I'm going to just That's his name. Put it up there, big there. And that's he is on LinkedIn. So that's the best way to reach him. Just reach out to him. Dave, I know you're usually very good about people asking questions and helping out.
01;09;07;10 - 01;09;29;10
Eugene
Nick, He'll even send you an infrared camera. He'll build you one. There you go. So Well, look, Dave, I want to say thank you so much for being here today. It's always, always, always an honor to have you great information. And thank you so much for the support on the Forensic Photography Symposium, and I'm looking forward to doing some more with you in the future.
01;09;29;27 - 01;09;54;26
David
Yeah, and anyone listening? Thank you very much for taking the time to check it out. And I love meeting anyone else around the world that does not just what I do, but what any of us do. And if there's any way I can, I can provide support. And honestly, it is. I love learning. So, I always want to know how other people do what we do because I didn't have anyone specific to learn from to teach me.
01;09;54;26 - 01;10;02;01
David
So, I have no idea if I'm doing things the right way. I would just hope that by now and hopefully I figured it out so thank you very much.
01;10;02;14 - 01;10;03;13
Eugene
Take care. Bye.