Don't Use Scars and Moles
When Comparing Faces in Photos

by Joelle Steele

When I rule out a match between an unknown face and that of the person my client thinks it is, some like to argue with me about my findings. I always take the time to explain the importance of the bone structure and the proportions of the facial features, and how these proportions must match exactly from one face to the other. But some people still insist in arguing with me.

The number one thing that amateur collectors argue about is the presence of fleeting characteristics in both faces. These include freckles, moles, scars, and wrinkles. They are called “fleeting” because sometimes they appear in photos and sometimes they don’t.

This can happen because some of these characteristics simply appear early in life and then disappear, or they don’t appear until later in life. It also happens according to what period of time in photographic history a photo was taken and the kind of camera and development methods were used. During longer sitting periods, contrast can bring out facial characteristics, often making them more pronounced. Fleeting characteristics can also be very pronounced in one photo and completely absent in another, sometimes due to the use of makeup to cover or conceal them. This makes fleeting characteristics an extremely poor choice for a point of comparison between two faces.

People can look deceptively similar, even down to the placement of their freckles, moles, scars, and wrinkles. But when you measure the faces and compare the proportions of the features, those fleeting similarities can become very obviously useless.