This photographic specialisation has a number of different names including;
- Medicolegal or medico-legal photography
- Scar Photography
- Forensic Photography (The live aspect of this specialisation)
- Medical photography
- Personal Injury Photography
As a broad definition this area of photography is "The photography of the living for legal purposes and covers photographs required for the civil and criminal courts." Within this definition are wide range of photographic techniques that can be applied by professionally qualified photographers.
Tim Zoltie discusses this aspect in his 2013 paper "Professional development in medico-legal photography: Understanding the importance of a clinical photographers role." Photographers within this specialisation have to have an understanding of the legal requirements as well as be able to correctly photograph any features of the injuries, usually they are qualified clinical photographers, though occasionally their background may be forensic.
For general information about this area please look at the other pages on this website and for more detailed background please have a look at any of my papers that have been published, as below.
Bryson, D. Conflict of interest and privilege in clinical and medicolegal photography: A short summary. Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine 2014; Vol. 37(1-2): 51-53. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3109/17453054.2014.911154
Bryson, D. Operating theatre photography in personal injury cases. Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine 1999; 22 (2): 75-82. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1080/014051199102197
Bryson, D. A guide to medicolegal photography for personal injury claims. Journal of Audiovisual Media in Medicine 1994; 17(1): 5-11. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3109/17453059409018370
Bryson, D. Personal injury photography in the operating theatre. Your Expert Witness Magazine. September 2014 p48-49. http://issuu.com/potion/docs/1ywg_mag_p1-68_online
If you are unable to access the papers from the above source please e-mail me for copies at d.bryson@cladonia.co.uk or go online to my pages on ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Bryson2
Reference
Zoltie, T. Professional development in Medico-legal Photography: Understanding the importance of a clinical photographers role Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine 2013 36:1-2 , 82-85.