Real Life Murder Mysteries

In 2009, images were produced from the archives of the Dart award winning newspaper project. These poignant still images focused on the witnesses and victims of a crime. The photographs  were taken by photojournalists who were  exploring and relating images to news stories of offence  which occurred in their own community. They captured the emotional time after the incident through painful and realistic shots.

This journalistic project influenced me to investigate the crime within my home city of Galway, putting the spotlight on murders. Over the past century, Galway has created an illusion of a quiet, peaceful and flawless city. However, under the roots of anything there is always the fascinating truth. There have been some terrifying and gruesome murders to pass through this city over the past couple of decades, which has not harmed Galway’s ideal reputation at all. Galway city looks like a guiltless and harmless city but everyday thousands of feet trample through the cobbled city streets not knowing the history of the granite and tar they walk upon. My job was to capture the emotional and mysterious side of the city. A side where known unlawful deaths have occurred. I scoured through the archive of online newspapers and had a little knowledge of murders committed. During my research local people provided me with different stories. My images grasp the area where the unfortunate and sad incidents occurred or where deceased was found. In relation to the theme ‘stories’, nobody knows the real occurrences that happened that day or night.  These pictures represent and illustrate the obscurity of the anonymous stories that flood our everyday streets. People can only guess and use there imagination on what happened at that time but nobody knows the true story; only a) the victim and b) the murderer.