gory photo essay
Hey everyone,
this semester at university I have taken up a photography class and I have to do my main portfolio assignment soon. Everyone is taking landscape shots of sunsets and it's making me really pissy. So I've decided to do a set of gory murder scenes, all pegged off and numbered, ugly flash photography and all that jazz. Now my main problem is props, does anyone have any ideas about
what I can use for blood? (something with the same consistency/colour but easy to wash off walls)
what makes for a realistic looking murder scene?
any props I can use/buy? (on a budget of course)
what kind of scenes would fit just one serial killers mind?
any ideas are welcome, I'm going for subtlety rather than blatant in your face chainsaw massacre scenes.
I have a studio at my disposal but I was thinking that a mix of outside (shallow grave) and inside (blood splatters, tipped up chairs) shots would be nice. I'm not sure I want a dead body in every shot (or a dead body at all), as it will be nice to have an eerie emptiness to a murder scene. I'm thinking the essay could revolve around one serial killer and I would like to make the crimes fit one person's mind eg. the first murder scene could just be a rushed shallow grave, and they get more careless and messy (or maybe neater) as they progress (depending on the psychology behind the murders). I'm mainly interested in showing the motive/psychology behind the serial killer and have therefore read up on many people (Jeffrey Dahmer for example I found extremely interesting whereas those guys that rape/murder prostitutes I find not so interesting). I only have 10 shots, and I was thinking the last shot could be a close up on something that gave the serial killer away (something less blatant then a fingerprint). I know it's a strange thing to ask, but I thought if anyone could help me, it would be you cult minions. ; ] So any ideas?
arg
I helped on a photo project like this once...
Karo syrup and red food coloring. If you're not spilling blood on fabrics, you could also try cherry Kool-Aid mixed with a slightly less water than usual. If you're doing outdoorsy shots, talk to your local butcher. He'll probably cut you a great deal on blood, and you'll have the most realistic crime scene ever.
Find murder methods than involve things other than blood: vomit from poisoning - corn chowder mixed with chewed foods and other things, maybe some organs (again, see your butcher, but remember that cow organs look nothing like human organs. It's better to get some guts and mash 'em a little. You'll stink to Hell, but you'll also have a picture that will make people queasy). You could get a friend to lay behind a tipped over sofa, one high heel dangling from her toe, the other foot bare (that's all you see over the edge of a sofa) - in other words, find creatiuve ways to hide the trauma done to the body while still displaying the body...
This reminds me of a story I wrote one time about a guy that kills someone online and confesses to it, but no one, the cops or anybody, believe him beause they think it looked fake.
If you want some good REAL examples to get ideas from - check out the book:
Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook
It's full of great pictures of death, murder, and suicide... Is it wrong that my girlfriend and I have this as our coffee table book?
Gelatin and stuff, powdered gelatin, mixed with... somethingorother... water... I dunno, whatever, gelatin makes awesomely gory prosthetics and stuff if you want to make the ripped skin around a wound.
this thread also reminds me of all those buckets of blood that Six had laying around.
Thanks for your help everybody. I've got good news related to the photo shoot, last night my friend showed me a cinema complex thats been half torn down (its in the process of being turned into a new apartment complex). We snuck in and ended up exploring all seven or so stories of it. It was full of eerie dark concrete hallways and concrete rubble and it still had stuff like old drink machines and glow in the dark exit signs laying around. The downside is that hobos stay there so while walking along some dark hallways I kept nearly stepping on piles of shit. Also all the fire extinguishers had been set off (would have been fun) =[.
Anyway to the point, I'm taking my camera, tripod, torch and a willing model and I'm gonna take some extremely great dead body shots! Best thing is I can splatter the walls with blood all I want without having to wash it off (that'd freak out those trippin' hobos 
) Thanks for the technical info everyone, I'll stick to fake nonsmelly blood because I don't need it to look perfect (low lighting conditions) but I'll definitely think up some interesting ways to be killed.
and to Ppgoutis and adelheid: I looked at a lot of crime scene murder photos on the internet and lets just say I've had enough 'inspiration' for one lifetime . After viewing these I decided that I'll go for stylish eerie kinds of deaths rather than INTESTINES AND ORGANS IN YOUR FACE kinda stuff :Eek
I am definitely going to do a SweeneyTodd/Rope styled "arm and leg sticking out of a box" shot and a blood splatter close up 'psycho' shot. I also like the high heels/sofa idea by monkeywright where the body is slightly hidden, not giving too much away.
So I'll pose one last question, does anyone know of some other clever ways to be killed/displayed? (that can be pullled off in one frame)
If not, heey I'm still set to go. Thanks everyone!
arg
A hanging. Just have the rope come all the way down so the persons feet are on the floor. Have him/her twist their neck in a weird fashion. And shoot them from the hips up. Make sure their tongue is hanging out. It looks funny - but all real hangings I've seen that's how it looks.
Wish I had seen this thread sooner. I assume the class assignment is already done, but what the hell.
1) crushed head.
timing will be everything on this one. its really more of a movie trick than a photograpy trick, but if you time it right, it will be awesome.
make a dummy. no head.
buy a cantelope. cut a hole iin the cantelope large enough to fit a spoon inside. scoop out the fruit. you can eat this yourself or give it to the homeless people. fill the cantelope with fake blood. if you really want to go all out you can add some ground meat.
put a wig on the cantelope. place the cantelope on the dummy where its head would be.
get your buddy to stomp some brains out!
2) a gunshot
supercheap. just get some toilet paper, tear it into little pieces. soak in fake blood. the toilet paper should clump to itself so you can sculpt it into the shape of a bullet wound. you can also randomly toss some soaked pieces of toilet paper behind your model to serve as gore.
3) intestines.
the best way to make these is with liquid latex. you just paint a sheet of latex, wait for it to dry, roll it into a tube, then paint a strip of latex between the edges and ta-da!
If you cant get liquid latex for whatever reason, get some latex gloves, the kind doctors use. make sure they are flesh colored. grab some duct tape, roll it into tubes, sticky side out. cut the fingers off your gloves, and cut them into sheets ( so you cant put your hands in them). stretch teh gloves around the duct tape. you'll need about three gloves per foot of intestine. any more and your not stretching the gloves around the tape roll tight enough. if you do it right it should bend at certain points. cover in fake blood and your done.
4) heart/ other organ
using duct tape and latex gloves, sculpt a vaguely heart shaped thing. for extra effect stick some tube on it, tape the tube to teh thing, and tape around the tube so it doesnt look so artificial. wrap the whole thing in paper towel. soak in blood.
hopefully thats a good start. also, most of these ideas come from movie making, so you can use them there if you're into film. good luck (or if the assignments already done, hope it turned out good)!
I've learnt one thing from the internet: never under any circumstances record illegal activites.
got anything ideas that wont send me to jail? :E
arg