Lights! Cadavers! Action!

Last week I was sent to photograph an FBI course being taught over at the medical campus. They students were part of the Evidence Response Team and were learning from a retired FBI agent and a MED professor, how to get prints of victims.

I was going to see cadavers, and smell formaldehyde

I was really nervous leading up to the assignment, not knowing how I would react. What would the bodies look like? What was it going to smell like? I had no idea whatsoever.

I showed up and Gary, the retired FBI agent and instructor in forensics at BU, brought me straight into the gross anatomy lab. As we walked in, I saw four bright green bags covering bodies on tables at the far end. I glanced over to my left and BAM!  There was a body, picked over and dissected and being leaned over and worked on by a student. "They're dental students" Gary told me. The bodies are donated to the school. Gross Anatomy learns on them first, then the dental students get them, then the forensics department.

OK, this is happening. Mind over matter.

He explained how the class works, what they were doing, etc (the students were having lunch at the moment in the other room).

Class gets back in session and we gather around a body bag. TO my surprise there were far more women int he class than men. They brought an arm out of the bag. It was an old woman, I'm guessing. She had pink fingernails and had been completely dissected over by the anatomy students. I got a glimpse of her head at one point, not on purpose, and it was completely wrapped up.

I waited for the next hand to come out on the next body so I could photograph a body with no nail polish.  The professor/doctor standing by the next body threw back the green bag and wow, I was not prepared. It was an entire, complete, untouched human dead guy.  Big belly, hair on his head, bulbous nose, gnarly toe nails. I really had to focus to keep it together. The prof covered the majority of the body back up, but the head and arm stayed outside.

Gary worked on the hand, which was stiff and curled. He bent and tugged, pulled and massaged. I crossed my fingers that he would break nothing and I wouldn't hear a crack. I knew that would put me over the edge.

Mind over matter.

The prof came over to me at some point and reminded me that I don't need to be a hero. I could go over to the window if I needed a break. But I was OK and I told him so, "It was just...I wasn't prepared for him to be so...um...in tact." I told him.
"Oh"
"And his head's still out" I added.
"Oh, sorry" he scurried over and kindly covered the man's head with the green bag.  After that it was much easier to be int he room and do my job.

Using a cadaver at MED, Boston FBI Support Staff members Crystal Komara, from left, Keri Allen, and Keri Peters learn new techniques for collecting prints from a victim March 14, 2014, during a course for the FBI Boston Division Evidence Response Team.

I shot this one the other day and was just really happy with how it came out. They way the guy at center is standing there sort of eerily.

Electrician Margaret Lorinczi (CFA'16), atop the ladder, and Associate Lighting Designer Alex Fetchko (CFA'15) put the finishing touches on the lighting for CFA's upcoming For Colored Girls at CFA March 17, 2014. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide With The Rainbow Is Enuf opens Friday night and runs through the weekend.