NETHERLANDS: Forensic police photos on display as art in a gallery in Amsterdam.

A photography gallery is showcasing photos from the Amsterdam police archives, depicting scenes of crime and gore never before shown to the public. The photographs were taken by professionals giving it an aesthetically eerie quality. The Amsterdam Police is formally required to keep their extensive forensic photographic records secret for twenty years. But now, photography Museum "Foam" has taken the opportunity to select pictures which have never been published or displayed in public before. The images from the Amsterdam police archives depict actual crime scenes and have just gone on display at a leading Dutch photography gallery which sees in them an "ominous, mysterious beauty." Spanning the period from 1965-1985, the photos document chilling scenes of lonely suicides, murders, violent struggles, or the frantic last moments of those who suddenly died alone. But they also capture the social history of the city, the dingy interiors, and the sad enclosed lives of its junkies, prostitutes and loners. "The period we chose finally, 1965-1985, there were real photographers who were commissioned by the police of Amsterdam to take the forensic pictures and that's why the quality was so good, I mean the composition, the colours, lighting, everything was so beautiful that we thought, well, this is really worthwhile showing in the museum," said curator Colette Olof. The photos are shown without any additional details from their case files, so the horror of the New Year's Day rape which lies behind the discarded stilettos, or the murder of the girl whose body was left dumped in a meadow, is only hinted at. The gallery says the exhibition is unprecedented in showing forensic photographs where the victim's bodies are still in place. In one picture a woman's shapely legs are seen through long grass and an old fashioned Dutch bicycle lies on its side. She could almost be sleeping. Former police photographers whose work is shown in the exhibition have played down their images' artistic qualities, but they recall the importance of capturing the scene before them which might contain vital clues. "The camera gives the distance. At the moment you look through the camera lens, you don't see the victim or a human being, but an object which has to be documented in the best possible way. You have to leave all emotions behind, otherwise you bring them home in the evening, and that's not good at all," said former police photographer Henk Zaaiman. The photos will be on display until February 25.

ITN Source | January 26, 2007

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