Alphonse Bertillon and the mug shot
Alphonse Bertillon was chief of criminal identification in the Paris police from 1880 onward. His aim was to create a system to identify criminals, and so he created what he called 'anthropometry', which means to measure humans. He would measure the facial features of criminals that would not change, particularly repeat offenders. This included eye colour, the shape and angles of the ears, brows, and nose, and the distance between these features.
He would take photographs of the suspect or criminal facing forwards, and one profile view. He wanted both because he felt it important to show the ear of the person as it could be a distinguishing part of the face, and therefore vital in identifying thee person, and of course the frontal view shows the whole face including any markings.
This way, he'd have written notes as well as photographic visuals to support said notes.
He eventually branched out into measuring body parts too, as well as a spoken description and fingerprints.
His system was supposed to be able to identify repeat offenders, eliminating the chance of not realising they're the same person and have been catalogued before. By having their measurements catalogued he believed criminals would be identified easier and in a more organised way.
What he didn't account for, however, is that some people may have the same measurements. He understood there was a high chance of the height being the same as somebody else in the catalogue, however he thought the more measurements he took the less room for mistake there will be. And while statistically he's right, there was still room for mistake due to the fact most of the other measurements he took correlated to the height of the person.
In the year of 1884, 241 repeat offenders were found due to this system, and it started to spread worldwide, however it caused a debate about whether people could be born a criminal and identified as a criminal using the system before they'd even committed a crime.
Anthropometry was replaced with the more reliable use of fingerprints, as each fingerprint is different and so there's very little room for mistakes, however while the measurement system left, we still use the photographic part to this day, which we call the 'mug shot'.
Modern mugshots haven't really changed much in the last century, which keeps consistency. The subject is straight faced, looking directly into the camera. This eliminates any emotion, personality and depth to the person; it's purely visual for identification purposes.
As odd as it seems, I aim to do something very similar for my own project. I want to eliminate any sign of who the people actually are in my images, as the whole point of my project is to play with the fact that photographs tell you nothing about the person, and how the viewer makes a narrative up. Because of this, I need my subjects to be expressionless, much like the mugshot.
I will only be doing the straight on photographs instead of both that and a portrait view, simply because I am not using my photos for classification but for art, and so it's not needed.
He would take photographs of the suspect or criminal facing forwards, and one profile view. He wanted both because he felt it important to show the ear of the person as it could be a distinguishing part of the face, and therefore vital in identifying thee person, and of course the frontal view shows the whole face including any markings.
This way, he'd have written notes as well as photographic visuals to support said notes.
He eventually branched out into measuring body parts too, as well as a spoken description and fingerprints.
His system was supposed to be able to identify repeat offenders, eliminating the chance of not realising they're the same person and have been catalogued before. By having their measurements catalogued he believed criminals would be identified easier and in a more organised way.
What he didn't account for, however, is that some people may have the same measurements. He understood there was a high chance of the height being the same as somebody else in the catalogue, however he thought the more measurements he took the less room for mistake there will be. And while statistically he's right, there was still room for mistake due to the fact most of the other measurements he took correlated to the height of the person.
In the year of 1884, 241 repeat offenders were found due to this system, and it started to spread worldwide, however it caused a debate about whether people could be born a criminal and identified as a criminal using the system before they'd even committed a crime.
Anthropometry was replaced with the more reliable use of fingerprints, as each fingerprint is different and so there's very little room for mistakes, however while the measurement system left, we still use the photographic part to this day, which we call the 'mug shot'.
Modern mugshots haven't really changed much in the last century, which keeps consistency. The subject is straight faced, looking directly into the camera. This eliminates any emotion, personality and depth to the person; it's purely visual for identification purposes.
As odd as it seems, I aim to do something very similar for my own project. I want to eliminate any sign of who the people actually are in my images, as the whole point of my project is to play with the fact that photographs tell you nothing about the person, and how the viewer makes a narrative up. Because of this, I need my subjects to be expressionless, much like the mugshot.
I will only be doing the straight on photographs instead of both that and a portrait view, simply because I am not using my photos for classification but for art, and so it's not needed.
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