The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
atlasobscura.com
The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#2I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#3http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features...
UK court artists are not allowed to sketch in court. They must observe and then leave to sketch from memory (a fact that I was not previously aware of).
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#4I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
many courtrooms do not allow photography
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#5I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
many courtrooms do not allow photography
While all the sketching seems less efficient, I'd really rather not have courtroom activities be photographed and used in mass media. Or, images have so much power and I'd hate to see them twisted or misused for someone's personal/political gain later.
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#6I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
many courtrooms do not allow photography
Well indeed, I suppose I should have also said "aside from photography being disallowed". Perhaps to phrase another way, why could anyone be against the reintroduction of photography into courtrooms?
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
many courtrooms do not allow photography
While all the sketching seems less efficient, I'd really rather not have courtroom activities be photographed and used in mass media. Or, images have so much power and I'd hate to see them twisted or misused for someone's personal/political gain later.
Sure, but surely sketches can be just as twisted and misused (e.g. drawing a defendant with a menacing snarl), and even more so given that there's no source of real truth.
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
many courtrooms do not allow photography
Well indeed, I suppose I should have also said "aside from photography being disallowed". Perhaps to phrase another way, why could anyone be against the reintroduction of photography into courtrooms?
I think it's an extension of trying to avoid the effects of "conviction in the court of public opinion". Imagine seeing a coworker on trial on the news.
Or imagine being on trial, declared innocent, but most people just saw the fact you were on trial and recognize you by your picture.
There's also details like having the jury's faces be out there.
Personally I think a lot of this is "solvable", and having video footage in places like the supreme court would make coverage of it a bit easier for places like TV. Say what you will about TV dumbing things down and only taking fragments, having more people pay attention to the judicial system would be a net positive IMO
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#9I there any reason to prefer these illustrations over photos, other than "charm"? Something like not recording things that weren't the centre of attention?
I've been learning how to sketch recently (not for courtrooms, just for fun), but something I noticed in the process might be relevant.
When you're sketching, you have to make choices about what's important and what to leave out. That means you have to study the scene pretty closely and pick what to represent. If courtroom sketching works like that, then I could see how having a skilled observer picking out important things to represent could be beneficial. If a particular moment is especially memorable, the sketch might capture and emphasize the drama in a way that a photo wouldn't. A sketch is kind of like the executive summary of a scene, removing noise and focusing in on what seemed important at the time.
Re: The Dying Art of Courtroom Illustration
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
While all the sketching seems less efficient, I'd really rather not have courtroom activities be photographed and used in mass media. Or, images have so much power and I'd hate to see them twisted or misused for someone's personal/political gain later.
Sure, but surely sketches can be just as twisted and misused (e.g. drawing a defendant with a menacing snarl), and even more so given that there's no source of real truth.
Sketches are further removed from reality than photographs, so the viewer would know that this is the artist's interpretation of the event. If you bring a camera and take 100 or 1000 shots of someone, you can pick any one of them to act as the full representation of reality. Look how much people trust publicity photos or photos in ads to be unaltered to see how much faith people put in photography. Also, anyone can be made to look jovial or angry if you take enough photos of them, and the photo is more closely related to reality in the viewer's mind than an illustration.
Kind of related, in Sweden, there's been a murder case in the newspapers the last months where the defendants' heads were blurred in photos during the trial and their names were anonymized. As soon as they were convicted, full photos and names were published. Here the idea is to protect their identities until found guilty. I don't know if this is regulated by law or if it's just a matter of press ethics.