John Dillinger's Fascination With Crime Through The Art Of Photograph

Fascination with Crime through the Art of Photograph

The human fascination with crimes goes back hundreds of years. We are usually fascinated by events and actions that are very unlikely to happen; however, despite the fact that many crimes seem distant from the everyday routine life of a peaceful human being, it is real. In addition, curiosity is a driver that often makes us wonder about the most horrible events that happened in the human history, for example, the Jonestown massacre or the unsolved West Memphis Three murders. Given the fascination, crime has also become a subject for modern entertainment like TV shows and documentaries “Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play” displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an exhibit which

Even given the fact that John Dillinger was a well-known Chicago criminal and a bank burglar, the photo displays that even famous and great people are exposed to death. Dillinger’s body is brightly lit to difference with a deep dark education. Furthermore, the exterior, which the body is placed on, is rusty and dirty – a reminder that once a person is dead, he or she is not treated the same way that they are treated when alive. Despite the fact that this photograph is discreet in its content compared to the previously discussed photo, it is striking for its

Apart from specifically capturing the crime scene, photographs of crime can be accidental as proven by the exhibition, not all photos were taken intentionally by the author for forensic analysis or other reasons. Photographs included in the exhibition are also snapshots from footage taken from surveillance cameras. The spontaneity is what makes such shots unique they are not clear in their presentation; however, in some cases, such photographs offer a much more real representation of the events. The light in such photos is uncontrolled, and the scene is not captured fully in the instances like the photograph “A Robber Aims at a Bank Security Camera in Cleveland” when the face of a perpetrator is not seen. On the other hand, carefully prepared crime scene photos with controlled lighting, darkness brightening, and fully captured contents are the ones that attract the most attention. For example, Weege’s photograph “Human Head Cake Box Murder” looks like as if it was staged by the photographer to make the perfect shot. Although greatly captivating, the carefully taken images seem somehow distant from reality compared to unclear shots from surveillance cameras.“Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play” is a meticulously curated collection of photographs that all put forward a message that crime is multi-faceted, it does not only involve sinister