FORENSIC PHOTOGRAPHY AS A NEW DISCOURSE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHY WORLD

The development of photography today is increasingly rapid because photography is not just a documentation medium that leads to services, commerce, expression, and visual information media. Photography has now developed into a documentation medium that can strengthen a legal case investigation, such as photographs used by the police as evidence or recordings of the scene of a crime to strengthen the process of investigating a case.

Through an online lecture with zoom on Monday, May 11, 2020, a collaboration between the Department of Photography with Dr. Nadzri B. HJ Mohd Sharif as Head of Center for Art and Design Faculty, University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Melaka and Siti Norfatulhana Ishak as a senior lecturer from the Department of Creative Photomedia, University Teknologi Mara (Puncak Alam Campus), forensic photography as a new discourse in the world of photography was thoroughly discussed under the title of Forensic Photo.

The public lecture, which lasted approximately two and a half hours, discussed the intricacies of forensic photography from theory to the scope of work. According to the Dean of the Faculty of Recording Media Arts (FSMR), Dr. Irwandi, M.Sn., this public lecture can be a good collaboration for further cooperation in the future. He also said that behind the difficulties of the Covid-19 Virus pandemic, there was ease and could be brought together to attend a public lecture with two lecturers from UITM.

According to Siti Norfatulhana Ishak or often called Cik Hana, forensics is not only limited to the criminal world but also includes anthropology, forensic linguistics, pathology, foresic analysis and so on. In general, according to Cik Hana, the basis of forensic photography will not be separated from the understanding of forensic science, which is solving a problem at the scene of the crime through science or science because the basics of science are used as a benchmark for solving a case. If interpreted more narrowly, still according to Cik Hana, forensic photography is useful for documenting crime scenes and helping police or investigators to bring perpetrators to account in court.

Photographs and other documents can strengthen evidence so that it can help law enforcement officials to decide whether or not a defendant is guilty at trial. Commonly used forensic photography does not use complicated shooting angles but instead tends to be technically simple, because forensic photography images are only required to be detailed and straightforward in order to display any evidence found in the field.

According to Dr. Nadzri B. HJ Mohd Sharif forensic photography can be used as evidence because it has many layers that will be adjusted according to the strength of the evidence, but there are also cases that do not have or even need forensic photos but the case still goes on to be resolved. An objective interpretation of a photograph of evidence at the scene of a crime can lead law enforcement opinions to form a judge's decision about whether or not a perpetrator is guilty. Whether or not the evidence is accurate to a photo evidence can be a support to decide whether or not a perpetrator is guilty of a crime so that later it will affect the form of punishment which depends on the level of the crime. Forensic studies in the future are expected to always develop so that it requires its own competence, especially from the world of photography, because the images produced must be in accordance with professional procedures and ethics so that they require separate training. In the future, the Photography Department can collaborate with agencies that need to use forensic photos to develop the insight and photography skills of its students.