What’s the one thing you do on EVERY scene, vehicle, or vehicle component inspection? Photography, of course. If your photographs are accurate and of good quality, they will be important pieces of evidence in depositions or trials. After all, you can’t cut out a giant section of the highway with all the tire marks and gouges to bring into court. Nor can you bring a couple of wrecked tractor trailers up the elevator to the courtroom. But if your photos are good, you can have them entered into evidence in place of the physical evidence, and make them even more useful to the trier of facts (judge or jury) than the actual physical evidence itself would have been.
Tire marks without polarizer: (Click on image to enlarge, then click on arrow to return to this post):
Tire marks with polarizer: (Click on image to enlarge, then click on arrow to return to this post):
By good, I mean your photographs need to be consistently accurate, well focused, have good depth of field, and be well exposed and well lit with good shadow detail. And we don’t get to choose or change the lighting and weather conditions we face during our inspections. We have to adapt and still create quality, useful images.
Through SAE International, I’ll be teaching another three-day class called Photography for Accident Reconstruction, Product Liability, and Testing (SAE C1729). This class qualifies for SAE’s Accident Reconstruction Certification and for ACTAR credits.
We’ll get hands-on practice with the three most important tools (besides your camera and lens): a tripod, a polarizing filter, and one or more flashes. Flash is typically the tool most folks are afraid of, but you’ll learn the difference between full and fill flash, and how straight forward flash really is. We’ll even practice with two flashes, which let you capture details you can’t otherwise get.
You’ll receive a ton of information, and be able to apply what you’ve learned and practiced during your very next inspection and onward for the rest of your career.
If you’d like (need?) to make better automotive forensic photographs, please join me September 17 through 19, 2024, at the Anaheim Hills Business Center in Anaheim, CO. For more information or to register, please click here: https://www.sae.org/learn/content/c1729/.