Our next guest is Heidi Nichols from the Miami Dade County Medical Examiner Department. Welcome to The Junction and thank you for being here. Thank you. Excited. So can you first start by telling us your background and how it relates to the field of veterinary forensics?

Yeah, so I am a forensic photographer for the medical examiners and how it relates is, you know, forensic photography is, No matter whether it's humans or a crime scene or any sort of evidence, it relates also with animals. We're doing the same thing, whether we're doing necropsies or crime scenes or search warrants of animal welfare, uh, cases.

So what is the importance of forensic photography, both as it relates to the crime scene and then, like, evidence photography?

So it documents, it visually documents what may change later. Um, what, uh, we might not be able to see to the naked eye. We can use different alternate light sources to be able to see things. Macro lenses to be able to enhance things a little bit better. Um, so whether it be at a crime scene or in an autopsy suite or a necropsy suite, we want to preserve the evidence and make it an accurate representation of what we're seeing. Um, so we want to make sure that we are using the correct, uh, equipment, the correct, um, lighting, the correct exposure to be able to capture those images correctly.

So I love pictures. I take pictures of everything, like my poor kid, right? Like I'll take 10, 000 pictures of everything, but I'm the same way when I go to a crime scene. So is there such a thing as having too many pictures or is it worse to have too few pictures?

Oh gosh, I think it's far worse to have too few. Um, I, I, we used to have an expression, film is cheap. Um, and that was when film wasn't cheap. Um, because, you know, you, Now, I would say you also don't want to just take random things of, you know, and this is where knowing your equipment and making sure, like, that you are taking a properly exposed image, so if it takes you 20 photos, to get that properly good exposed photo, I'd say, you know, practice a little bit more, um, but definitely, I don't think you can go wrong with having too many photos in the sense of having too little photos, yeah.

One of the things that I have that has been a little bit of an issue has been some animal cruelty investigators have been taking video in lieu of photographs. So what would be the problem with that?

The problem is that there's not great quality if you try to pull those stills off of a video. So if you want to try to do any sort of enhancements of, um, evidence that's there, whether it be, um, classification of evidence or, um, analyzing any of those, you don't have the same quality from the video than you do from the still image.

One of the errors that I personally committed when I started doing photography was that I use my smartphone for everything, right? Because it was so convenient. I had it there. I could take pictures and everything, but why is that not a good idea?

It's not that, I mean, and especially the, the smartphones have come a long way, but if it's ever going to go to court, they could confiscate your cell phone, they, you know, and that's. That's everything, your self, your, your personal photos, your text messages, your emails. So um, if you're using your cell phone or the, your jurisdiction is giving, you know, cause I know in some places patrol, they have cell phones, they have little point and shoots, but it's, it's dedicated just for that. That's the only thing it's being used for. It's not your personal phone and your cell phone. Um, and again, like that's great for just maybe, documentation of something. But again, if you're taking a photo of, uh, to be analyzed, whether it be a paw impression, a foot impressions, blood spatter, any of that, that's going to be analyzed. Um, you're just not going to have the quality. Yeah.

So what kind of cameras should investigators be looking at considering that there are some places that do not have a huge budget and then there are others that have unlimited budget.

Yeah. So, I mean, you, You're the di the price of digital s SLRs and the mirrorless cameras have come way down. So I would say invest in a, in a good, um, digital SLR or a mirrorless camera. Uh, you don't have to spend a ton of money. I mean, a couple hundred dollars would be able to get you, um, a, a good. interchangeable lens camera. There are really great point and shoot cameras as well that have the manual override, which allows you to change your exposure. So your F stops, your shutter speeds, your ISOs, you can have control over those. So it's just a matter of looking at them, comparing them and, and, and then practicing with them. Yeah.

Now I know that I, I personally was afraid of all of the different manipulations that you can do in a camera, so it's like set it on automatic and go. But how, how difficult is it to learn and what's the benefits of using the manual settings on the cameras?

Yeah, so it's really, I, I always kind of say, well you're kind of setting it and forgetting it anyway. So if you're using a flash, like do you use a flash? I do, I try, yeah. Okay, perfect. Perfect. So then, essentially, when you photograph in manual mode, is you set your shutter speed to the fastest to what your camera syncs at. So what do you use, Nikon or Canon? I believe it's a Canon. Okay, so Canon, I think it might be the ISO, I mean the shutter speed, the fastest sync speed is 200. So you just set your shutter speed to 200. Um, if you're mostly, um, in darker environments, you might set your ISO to 400. Those are two things that you're leaving alone. And then you have your aperture setting of your lens at F8, F11. Those are gonna give you great photos. And I mean, and it's a manual setting. You've control, you have control over it. Now you can always make changes if it looks too dark. You can open up, slow down your shutter speed, increase your ISO if you need to. So it, it really isn't as scary once you sort of understand, uh, the components of it.

Um, I took the Forensic Science Master's degree from University of Florida, so a lot of it had to do with, like, the crime scene investigation and the importance of photography and that kind of stuff, and it teaches you about, um, kind of creating a story with your photographs. But I have received pictures from animal control officers that you have no idea what's going on. So what, what are the issues with like these chaotic scenes?

Yeah, I just think that photography isn't taught nearly as much as it needs to be. I think that now that the world is digital, we all carry phones or we all carry cameras in our pockets. We all like kind of think of ourselves as photographers and we just sort of have to strip back to some of those basics. and the basics of really understanding exposure, and then again, just working in a systematic manner. You have to remember, uh, that. people are looking at your photos that were not there. And we may get so ingrained and like, we know this scene so well because we're working this scene, but you have to step back and realize like, okay, if I give these photos to somebody, like, are they going to know where we are? You know, I know when I'm looking at the photo or I know that if I'm taking the photo where I am on the animal, but again, if it's not a wide enough orientation or there's no overall than somebody looking at the photo, they may have no idea where you are.

So is there any benefit of taking photography lessons or what resources are there available for individuals that are taking crime scene photography or evidence photography?

Yeah. Oh my gosh. There are so many different types of, um, crime scene photo or in basic photography classes that are out there. Um, I mean, you can just Google forensic photography classes and a lot of different agencies, tri tech forensics. Um, uh, gosh, there's so many. So many different ones that offer a lot of different photography courses and classes. And then practice. I would say just practice. Practice using your equipment, whether you're photographing your pets, your children, vacations, whatever. The more you practice with it, the better you'll be. And then, uh, also just practice. Just slow it down mentally when you're at a crime scene and just say, okay, let me work on my overalls and then my orientation and then my close up with and without a ruler and just sort of become like second nature to you. Just overall orientation, close up.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and thank you for everything that you do. Thank you. And thank you for being here.

Oh, thank you.