“As a child, when I would pass by a house where a violent and newsworthy death had recently occurred, I would stand there, close my eyes and try to imagine what took place,” writes Strassheim in her artist statement. Evidence is the latest of her many well-received portfolios dealing with family, mortality and latent menace. Strassheim was recently awarded the Women in Photography Lightside Individual Project Grant for her work.

To make her images, Strassheim closes doors and curtains to reduce light in the rooms and then shoots long exposures of between 10 minutes and an hour. Using color film is a necessity, because the short-lived illumination of blood residues can only be captured on ISO 800 film. The images are then converted to black-and-white in digital post-production.

“All around me I observe a glowing trail of bloodshed as swaths and constellations of light, helping me put together the pieces of a violent puzzle,” writes Strassheim.

The bright spots in Strassheim’s images are temporary chemiluminescence reactions between the chemical reagent BlueStar and the heme molecule of blood still present on the walls. Applied as a fine mist, BlueStar reveals blood patterns on surfaces even after blood has been wiped away. It’s invisible to the naked eye under ordinary lighting conditions, but Strassheim uncovers and documents the morbid traces of violence for all to see.

At more than 140 crimes scenes, Strassheim has negotiated access with new inhabitants of homes, motels and apartments — many of them unaware of the violent histories. Some crimes were as little as two months prior to her visit, and in other cases the crime occurred as far back as 18 years ago. Strassheim’s color exterior shots mimic “boring real-estate photography” and carry deadpan titles informing us of the weapons used in each crime. “Costco kitchen knives,” “Pitchfork” and “12-gauge shotgun” spur the imagination.

Is the glowing splatter really all blood? Graham Jackson, visiting professor of forensic science at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland, isn’t so sure.

“One problem,” he says, “may be the time delay between the crime and Angela taking the photographs. What we are seeing in the photographs may not be patterns that were left at the time of the crime. I’m not convinced that all the apparent fluorescence is due to blood-staining. In fact, some of the fluorescence looks like extraneous light, and some of the fluorescent patterns are particularly weird if they are indeed blood.”

It turns out that BlueStar reacts with peroxidase activity, which is not exclusive to blood. It’s exhibited by other materials, such as bleach and, according to Jackson, horseradish sauce.

“These photographs are about seeking out the truth,” says Strassheim. “However, I am not giving the stories to complete the process of fully imagining the event, so this body of work does play on the imagination.”

All photos: Angela Strassheim

Authors: Pete Brook

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