Crime Scene Photographer’s Job Is No Snap

If David Adkins ever held a photo exhibit, it would probably give gallery-goers nightmares.

Adkins is the supervisor of the Photographic Section of the Los Angeles Police Department, a civilian force of 34 steady-handed sharp shooters whose pictures don’t belong in any family photo album.

A great many of the scenes these photographers capture are the kind of images most people would rather erase from memory.

They include the perfect red circles of bullet-pierced flesh, the blackened eyes of abused children, the fingerprints of rapists and hundreds of blood-tainted knives, cudgels and guns.

LAPD photographers aim their lenses straight at the things most people turn away from, Adkins said.

“It takes a toll on us,” said Adkins, a 50-year-old former commercial photo studio owner. He closed his business when he took over the LAPD unit nine years ago. “Pictures of child abuse and death--they’re the worst.”

Adkins recalled one LAPD photographer who shot pictures of members of the bomb squad as they dismantled an explosive device. At one point the photographer walked away from the scene to smoke a cigarette. While he was gone the bomb detonated, killing his two colleagues.

“He had to photograph it as a homicide scene,” Adkins said. “It was very traumatic--he eventually transferred out of the section.”

The job requires emotional restraint and a great deal of skill, Adkins said.

“Everybody thinks they can just snap pictures,” Adkins said. “But we don’t have the luxury of saying: ‘That one didn’t come out.’ They all have to come out.”

Forensic photography is a complex art of documentation that can take years to master, Adkins said. The goal of this kind of photography is to reproduce evidence at the scene as faithfully as possible.

“We have to be very careful not to improperly represent the scene,” Adkins said. “Every kind of image we take has to have a context--we’ll take an overall establishing shot of the scene. Then we’ll narrow in on a bullet hole or the weapon used.

“You must have a scale or ruler in the photograph, because the size of the stab wound or weapon or whatever would be significant.”

Some unit members are on call at all hours.

The LAPD’s Photographic Section, which has a San Fernando Valley studio at the Van Nuys Police Station, will take about 1 1/2 million pictures this year, Adkins said.

“My specialty is underwater photography,” he said.

Last week, Adkins went diving at Castaic Lake with detectives searching for a murder weapon. He has also taken underwater pictures of bodies before recovery from Los Angeles rivers and lakes.

“We get a wide variety of assignments every day,” Adkins said. “Initially, we may be sent out to photograph the chief, and then get a call to photograph a body under a house, and after that we may be asked to photograph a toxic spill on a freeway . . . It’s a great job.”