For our cover this issue we visited the Tulare County Coroner’s office in Tulare to meet up with Kris Gray, R.N., a Registered Medicolegal Death Investigator, for a peek at what a day in the life of a forensic investigator might look like. As you may have already guessed, this meant spending a couple of hours inside the morgue—a place that’s cold, and for most, quite daunting. However, after overcoming the psychological impact of the fact that you in the MORGUE, the disconcerting feelings about your surroundings dissipate and it turns into a pretty cool experience.

Most people, aside from the coroner and investigators working on a given case, don’t get this kind of first hand glimpse into what it’s really like inside the morgue. While indeed it’s eerie at first, it’s also fascinating to think that on the table before you and with the help of the hundreds of instruments and special equipment used during an examination, lies the answers behind so many deaths, criminal and otherwise. It is with the help of these professionals and within these walls, that crimes are solved and mysteries are pieced together.

Gray, a collector of authentic forensic photography from upwards of thirty and forty years ago, suggested a black and white treatment for the stylization of the images used in her article. Always open to creativity, photographer David Swann and his wife and photo stylist, Sue, were immediately on board with the idea. “The concept of black and white photography for this shoot provides a sense of significance to its subject and highlights something that is important and unique about Gray,” said Swann, “It made a lot of sense.”