Missing Persons and the Photos Used

Lauras Law · 02-01-2020 12:57pm #1

Why is it so often the case when a person goes missing that the photo used to help find them is of poor quality? Blurry, bad angles, or in a case I saw today of a schoolgirl gone missing, a toothbrush in her mouth! Are these really the best a family can provide? I understand its horrific time for them and people may not be thinking clearly, but surely they'd realise the importance of using the best possible picture? For the majority of us, there must be at least a few clear photos our faces available that loved ones would have access to!

Treppen · 02-01-2020 1:00pm

Lauras Law wrote: »

Why is it so often the case when a person goes missing that the photo used to help find them is of poor quality? Blurry, bad angles, or in a case I saw today of a schoolgirl gone missing, a toothbrush in her mouth! Are these really the best a family can provide? I understand its horrific time for them and people may not be thinking clearly, but surely they'd realise the importance of using the best possible picture? For the majority of us, there must be at least a few clear photos our faces available that loved ones would have access to!

Ya those families using those photos are so inconsiderate. I'm offended

paw patrol · 02-01-2020 1:55pm

Treppen wrote: »

Ya those families using those photos are so inconsiderate. I'm offended

it certainly doesn't help the general public whose help they are seeking so kinda is inconsiderate so ask for help than then supply an unhelpful photo.

a recent example would be the Icelandic fella missing from the hotel around sentry the posters don't look like the guy the CCTV pics released.

afkasurfjunkie · 02-01-2020 1:59pm

I’ve often said the same thing too. I think the quality of the photo reflects the relationship the missing person has with those reporting. Teens spend half the day taking photos of themselves these days. If the family doesn’t have access to these or recent photos on their own phones it points to an unhealthy dynamic or strained relationships in the household imho. That in itself tells a story about the missing person.

RocketRaccoon · 02-01-2020 2:02pm

I understand missing person photos from years ago being awful but nowadays they should be perfect and clear.

I know if any of my 3 kids were to ever go missing I would have hundreds of photos to choose from, I'd always assume all parents would be the same but a lot of the time it's an awful photo where the person has been cropped and zoomed so you can barely make out their faces. I saw one recently that had a Snapchat filter applied to it ffs.

Dravokivich · 02-01-2020 2:04pm

afkasurfjunkie wrote: »

I’ve often said the same thing too. I think the quality of the photo reflects the relationship the missing person has with those reporting. Teens spend half the day taking photos of themselves these days. If the family doesn’t have access to these or recent photos on their own phones it points to an unhealthy dynamic or strained relationships in the household imho. That in itself tells a story about the missing person.

I wouldn't say there'd be issues like that. I don't take many photo's of myself or my son. Most recent would probably be from October.

02-01-2020 2:07pm

Wondering whether or not I should post on this thread but here goes:

A good proportion of those missing people will have moderate mental health issues and may have a high dependency on elderly parents for example.

The photos of the people themselves will be few in number: the only occasion a photo is taken is when they are at their organised birthday party. The individual may have difficulty when told to pose for an official photo, because they cannot grasp the business context of it.

o1s1n · 02-01-2020 2:10pm

Lauras Law wrote: »

Why is it so often the case when a person goes missing that the photo used to help find them is of poor quality? Blurry, bad angles, or in a case I saw today of a schoolgirl gone missing, a toothbrush in her mouth! Are these really the best a family can provide? I understand its horrific time for them and people may not be thinking clearly, but surely they'd realise the importance of using the best possible picture? For the majority of us, there must be at least a few clear photos our faces available that loved ones would have access to!

I'd say they're often asked by police for the most recent photo taken of them. Which may be of bad quality/very candid.

Omackeral · 02-01-2020 2:28pm

Otherwise we'd be looking for someone with dog-ear filters.

nibtrix · 02-01-2020 3:43pm

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

.

I know if any of my 3 kids were to ever go missing I would have hundreds of photos to choose from....

Yeah, but how old are your kids? I'd assume most parents would have 100's of photos of their kids up to about age 12 but after that they'll probably be a lot more reluctant to both spend time with you or to be in your 100's of photos. The parents of 15+ kids that go "missing" most often are unlikely to have 100's of recent pics to choose from.

02-01-2020 3:53pm

nibtrix wrote: »

The parents of 15+ kids that go "missing" most often are unlikely to have 100's of recent pics to choose from.

And truthfully, selfies they took themselves and photos from peoples social media, look feck all like the person in real life. Angles, and lighting and beauty filters etc etc etc. I know a lot of people who going by their social media pics, there is no way, NO WAY, anyone would recognize them in person.

starbaby2003 · 02-01-2020 3:55pm

I always assumed a lot of the kids were in care. It would probably not be standard in short term fosters to take a large number of pictures etc ... secondly given the world we live in they probably have a right to privacy so they can’t take pics from their Instagram account etc ...

pgj2015 · 02-01-2020 4:00pm

I hope my parents use this photo of me if i ever go missing.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_92816402_far-away-lonely-figure-of-a-man-standing-outdoors-in-winter.html

Cee-Jay-Cee · 02-01-2020 4:08pm

In a lot of instances, photos are not provided by the family but the journalist (using the term in the loosest fashion) screen shoots a photo of the person from their facebook or twitter account. In many cases its a small avatar photo that gets grainy/blurred when blown up for use in their article. The family will have given photos to the Gardaí but the Gardaí cant share that photo because this is a stupid country and every thing we do now is governed by GDPR laws.

4068ac1elhodqr · 02-01-2020 4:11pm

A large amount of the actual missing people, might appear to be int'l students (non-eu), and not even the ever-popular S'American language students.
Perhaps they decided to overstay their language school visas, and choose to go 'off-radar' (missing). Could also be int'l organised black-market labour crime factors at play.
e.g. https://www.garda.ie/en/Missing-Persons?pageNumber=3

Rothko · 02-01-2020 10:23pm

Treppen wrote: »

Ya those families using those photos are so inconsiderate. I'm offended

Missing Persons and the Photos Used

Comments