He deals with bodies up close for a living, but the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake was like nothing he had experienced before, says a Dunedin police forensic photographer, whose pictures are included in a new book of photographs by police photographers in the weeks following the quake.
The book, released today, features 256 pictures by some of the about 20 forensic photographers from New Zealand Police, who worked in the quake zone and at the mortuary at Burnham following the magnitude 6.3 quake that killed 181 people.
Dunedin police forensic photographers Constable Eddie Fields and Senior Constable Craig McKersey both spent time in Christchurch carrying out victim identification following the earthquake, and some of their pictures feature in the large photographic book.
Police photographers were the only photographers allowed to work for extended periods inside the cordoned area of the CBD known as the red-zone, and the book includes some shots never seen before, as well as shots from the mortuary where massive teams of experts worked long hard hours to identify victims.
Const Fields arrived in Christchurch two days after the quake, and stayed for two weeks.
He spent two days in the field with a disaster victim identification team, retrieving bodies from rubble, and then worked at the mortuary at Burnham photographing bodies, body parts, post mortems and property as part of the identification process.
The scene that greeted him on his arrival in Christchurch was surreal, but the need to set to the immense task soon kicked in, he said.
After two days in the quake zone, he moved to the mortuary where his focus became carefully and methodically recording every part of the autopsy and identification process, which with so many bodies with such bad injuries and miscellaneous property was a complex task that involved a high level of concentration and careful management for up to 12 hours a day.
As a policeman for 14 years, nine of those as a forensic photographer, Const Fields said he was used to dealing with bodies and horrible sights, but nothing compared with what he encountered in Christchurch.
"I thought I'd pretty much seen everything you could possibly see as far as tragedies and disasters went, but this was in another league. It was a bit like being in a war zone."
The first two days were a real eye-opener.
"Just the sheer number of bodies and the injuries were horrendous. It was completely different from anything I've ever experienced."
Howver, he was there to do a job, and that was what kept him focused.
"My job was really just to help identify those people. You just hang on to that thought and do the best job you can."
It was such a busy time, there was no time to stop and think about what he was seeing and experiencing, he said.
He was not sure which of his or Snr Const McKersey's shots are in the book, as they had not yet had time to look closely at it, but he was sure most of the photographs taken would be left out.
He had taken thousands of shots, but most were too raw to put in a book intended for people's coffee tables, he said.
All proceeds from the book will go to a charity that works with vulnerable families in Christchurch.
