THE FIRST ACTUAL MURDER SCENE

Since this blog was an afterthought the dates begin as of today (Sept. 17, 2013) I began the prototype in 2010 and it took me some time to collect a few cameras to disassemble. I found them to be a bit tricky as it was necessary to take them completely apart in order to take out the convex lens and replace it with clear glass.

My first actual scene is the Sharon Tate murder as there was much material to use as well as many scene photographs. I also read Helter Skelter to get a better feel for what I was trying to recreate. As I hadn't thought to write a progress blog at the time, the photos of work in progress is just what I did while I was working. All of the furniture and architecture was reproduced from an actual crime scene photo and I tried to be as accurate as I could in this small scale.
 

This is the incomplete living room.

Although it can hardly be seen in the finished scene, I built this tiny rocking chair. It is quarter inch scale but I forgot to put anything in to show scale. It is roughly about a 1 inch cube.




Some of the photos are graphic and might be disturbing so in order to not just publicly show them I am providing a link to an on-line album where the photos of the finished scene can be viewed if you wish to see them. Adoberevel link to camera scenes

THE SERIES BEGINS

The idea of doing scenes from famous murders inside of cameras came about after some inspiration from my son. He showed me some scenes taken from unusual angles and that was a springboard for my idea to show what a camera would see.

I started to research famous murders on the internet but first I wanted to do a prototype to explore how this would work out. Plus, at the time I didn't have any cameras to work with. I built a faux box camera and found an advertisement on the internet for a special crime scene camera which showed a scene, how the camera could take measurements and various angles. It was perfect for my experimentation.

I found photos of old Brownie box cameras and used one which I sized to fit the camera I had built. I found some old cameras (not useable for my project) and dis-assembled them, saving whatever parts I could. A lens frame with a flat watch crystal worked for the camera's eye. 

I built a room box from card stock so it would fit inside the camera and proceeded to make the items for the scene. It is quarter inch scale so an O scale train figure could be re-structured for the "body."

This scene is lit solely by LEDs in the table lamps and for the floor lamp I used optic fiber lit with an LED. I think in the future I will use a bit more lighting although you can see the scene fairly well through the camera lens.

I attached a switch to act as the shutter release and quarter size battery holder fits inside quite well. As a prototype it was an excellent learning process as I pretty much figured what I could do and what I needed to change.