"Daniel J. Matyola" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >You are essentially correct. The photographer -- or someone else who >observed the scene being depicted -- must testify that the image >accurately reflects the conditions in issue at the time in question. No >one every inquires as to whether the image was originated by traditional >photography or digital photography. That is besides the point, as long >as a proper legal foundation has been laid by competent tesitmony that >the image is an accurate depiction of what it purports to illustrate.
Absolutely correct. By the way: Traditional film-based photographs can be scanned and printed, with every bit as much potential for manipluation. Last Friday my S.O. testified in court as an expert witness in a big dollar medical malpractice lawsuit (around $1.5 million, IIRC). She brought a whole stack of prints (of malignant and non-malignant tumor cells) to present to the jury. About a third of them were digital capture and the rest were traditional film capture. All were digitally printed on my Epson 1270. Neither the judge nor either of the attorneys even *asked* about the technology used in making the photographs. They wanted the expert witness' testimony of what the images were and her sworn statement that they accurately represented what she saw through the microscope. -- Mark Roberts www.robertstech.com Photography and writing
