Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake

[simplex]

Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake

In September 1908 a US journal published a photo (see 1 and 2) labeled as being made in November 1904:
- (1) small size http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppprs/00600/00616v.jpg (189.9 KB JPEG)
- (2) large size http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/ppprs/00600/00616u.tif (17.2 MB TIFF)
The negative survived and has been scanned, see 1 and 2.

Can somebody, on this forum, bring solid evidence the picture is authentic and was not made using two different authentic photos, one containing only the November landscape, without the flying machine, and the other containing the plane but flying in a different landscape that could be just the sky?
Could this photo be in fact a combination of two different pictures or there is strong evidence on the image (detectable by an expert) that excludes this possibility?

 

[Braineack]

Why would they fake their 85th flight?

 

[astroNikon]

Why don't they check with historians?
and old "local" newspapers and things like that.

 

[480sparky]

In order to prove a fake, you'd need to examine the original negative.

 

[sscarmack]

Its real.

 

[simplex]

Why would they fake their 85th flight?

Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not.

If I answer the question "Why would they fake their 85th flight?" I will influence you and an answer already suggested by me is the last thing I want.

In order to prove a fake, you'd need to examine the original negative.

I have heard about this before but the negative is not accessible to ordinary people. What is available is that 17.2 MB TIFF.

Why don't they check with ... old "local" newspapers ...

The picture I am talking about was not published before Sep. 1908. There is no newspaper or book or something else to show this photo during the interval November 1904 - August 1908.

 

[astroNikon]

I have heard about this before but the negative is not accessible to ordinary people. What is available is that 17.2 MB TIFF.

The problem is ... a digital image ... or copy ... or an altered copy of the original ... is not an acceptable nor a good basis to conduct an experiment /investigation.

Any examiner would then have to contact everyone in the trail from the original photo to the existing presented "copy" of that photo. Review all reasons why someone had the photo or access to it, to what they have have scanned it with .. any computer that it may have traversed to see if anyone may have altered it ...

in short, You need the original to conduct any investigation.
Without the original .. it is all conjecture at that point or a very lengthy investigation.

Considering it's over 100 years ago ... that's a difficult investigation and even then, the original would have to be reviewed to confirm eh authenticity of the Copy that is presented as a "copy of the original".


If you ever watch tv like Pawn Stars. They bring in an expert to review the specific item in question, not a copy of the specific item in question, as to it's authenticity. Basically the same thing here. You need the original.

 

[limr]

Are you wondering if the Wright brothers themselves faked the photo?

I'm not sure how they could have gotten that double exposure on a plate negative. The field, fine, but to get that angle on the airplane with nothing in the background? I'm not saying it's IMpossible but it also seems quite implausible. It was possible to do double exposures on what I believe were dry collodion plates, but again, I'm not sure if they would have gotten anything so clean and still get that angle and distance from the plane.

But as sparky said, how is anyone supposed to know without examining the plates?

 

[Designer]

Your post makes this sound like a "whizzing" contest brewing.

Besides just looking at the image, some of us might be curious as to the controversy and the parties involved.

And how much is it worth to somebody.

 

[greybeard]

Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake


Can somebody, on this forum, bring solid evidence the picture is authentic and was not made using two different authentic photos, one containing only the November landscape, without the flying machine, and the other containing the plane but flying in a different landscape that could be just the sky?
Could this photo be in fact a combination of two different pictures or there is strong evidence on the image (detectable by an expert) that excludes this possibility?

So you think it might be a picture of the plane against the sky with the landscape superimposed? It is possible I guess. Do you have the original print to examine?

 

[Braineack]

Why would they fake their 85th flight?

Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not.

an expert would look at everything, especially all the other pictures and documents/notebooks/diaries from their 105 Dayton Ohio test flights in 1904 between may-dec.

the picture alone doesn't suggest anything, nor does not being published prior to 1908 (they weren't flying between 1906-1907); stop looking at circumstantial evidence.

 

[astroNikon]

Just WikiPedia talks about alot of controversy of the original flight/photos
Wright brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

seems the French wanted it disproven back in 1908 until the Wright brothers flew their plane in france as proof ...

 

[astroNikon]

Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not.

I would simply say

You are presenting a so called "copy".
The "copy" is correct for what you are presenting ... a copy of an image which may or may not be the same and in-itself may have been altered at some point digitally.

But the "copy" is not, and never will be, the original which may or may not depict the same photo as the "so-called copy".

As to if the original was altered ... well ... you'd have to have experts examine the original.

 

[TWright33]

It's real.

And TWright33 approves this message.

 

[robbins.photo]

Are you wondering if the Wright brothers themselves faked the photo?

I'm not sure how they could have gotten that double exposure on a plate negative. The field, fine, but to get that angle on the airplane with nothing in the background? I'm not saying it's IMpossible but it also seems quite implausible. It was possible to do double exposures on what I believe were dry collodion plates, but again, I'm not sure if they would have gotten anything so clean and still get that angle and distance from the plane.

But as sparky said, how is anyone supposed to know without examining the plates?

Well you couldn't prove it beyond the shadow of any doubt without examining the plates, but since I work in fraud detection for a living the first question that pops into my mind woudl be, why? What would they have had to gain by faking such a photograph? Faking something like that back then would have been exceedingly difficult, time consuming and frankly expensive - it's not like today where you can just drag the thing into photoshop and work a little digital magic and blamo, you've got a somewhat belivable fake.

To do this with the technology of the time would be.. well, frankly remarkable. Not impossible, but certianly not easy by any stretch of the imagination. So the question becomes, why would anyone take the time and effort it would take to fake a photograph like this one - well the answer is without something to gain they wouldn't. So who would gain by faking such a photograph? Well not the Wright brothers - many of their flights were public, as well as many of their crashes. If the notion here is that they supposedly "faked" this to win a government contract as I've heard some claim, well it just doesn't wash.

The Wrights were required to submit a $2,500 deposit along with their proposal to the US Government - which isn't something you do if your trying to pull some sort of a scam. If they didn't have a working flying machine then they would have lost that money and the contract. So it makes no sense for them to have "faked" evidence that their machine worked if it really didn't, because they wouldn't have gained anything. In fact they would have lost $2500 - which back in 1908 was a fortune.

It's pretty well documented from multiple public appearances from September 1908 to October of 1909 that they did have a working flying machine that repeatedly set endurance records. Granted, it was far from perfect, in fact I think there was at least one fatality of a passenger during that time frame - but the machine did do what the Wrights said it could do, in fact it surpassed expectations so much that they earned a $30,000 bonus from the government.

So the notion that this photgraoph is faked, well it's far fetched at best.