Crime photography

"Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play" is an exhibit currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City which examines depictions of crime in photos over the last century and a half.

Mia Fineman, one of the Met curators who devised the exhibit, says there has long been a thirst for depiction of crime in photographs.

"People want to see pictures of criminals and violent crimes," Fineman said. "Partly it's this titillation, the excitement of these things, it's partly a way of saying, 'That's not me.'"

The exhibit includes well-known images such as Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby and Patty Hearst caught robbing a bank on security camera still. But it also includes lesser-known newspaper and art photos, along with the work of French police photographer Alphonse Bertillon, who invented the mugshot.

The exhibit runs through July 31.