Real or fake?

[otherprof]

So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.

Anyone else thinks this is faked?

It may be one of my first cat photos, but my memory isn’ that good anymore.

 

[t0bias]

I would also like to point out that the details within the shadows (especially around eyes, snout and the forward-facing fur) look too detailed for a emulsion plate photograph. You would normally expect these areas to be mostly black.

 

[onsight]

So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.

Anyone else thinks this is faked?

Fake. My cat wants a play date. He does not play with dead things.

 

[RacePhoto]

Fake the grain is wrong and so is the fake color pretending to be sepia. That and probably every other reason that people listed, emulsions, contrast, DOF, all of them.In other words, not just a fake claim, but a poorly executed one.

 

[weepete]

Yup fake, can't describe why but it just looks wrong comared to photos of the time.

 

[Braineack]

Let's wait and see if Fox runs a story on it to see if it's real...

That would be a pretty good litmus test wouldn't it...

 

[acolvin]

So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.

Anyone else thinks this is faked?

Given what was required by the subject in terms of holding still in order to avoid blurring, it's not likely this is real unless the cat (who are notorious for not holding still,) was highly trained. I've worked almost exclusively with analog cameras (my oldest is a Kodak Brownie # 3 c. 1908) You didn't take pictures with the older analog cameras with subjects that moved because it created blurs owing to lack of shutter speed control. I doubt it's real. Also, older images, especially 19th century "cabinet cards" which this image appears to be aping, typically came with a photographer's imprint on the bottom. About the only thing the faker got right was the sepia tone, but the fuzziness is a bit too off to be real. The real cabinet cards tended to be much sharper. Plus the studio setting this would have occured in would have had too many distractions. Also, I have done re-touch and restortation work on older images and there are areas where this definitely look manipulated. Just MHO.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Given what was required by the subject in terms of holding still in order to avoid blurring, it's not likely this is real unless the cat (who are notorious for not holding still,) was highly trained. I've worked almost exclusively with analog cameras (my oldest is a Kodak Brownie # 3 c. 1908) You didn't take pictures with the older analog cameras with subjects that moved because it created blurs owing to lack of shutter speed control. I doubt it's real. Also, older images, especially 19th century "cabinet cards" which this image appears to be aping, typically came with a photographer's imprint on the bottom. About the only thing the faker got right was the sepia tone, but the fuzziness is a bit too off to be real. The real cabinet cards tended to be much sharper. Plus the studio setting this would have occured in would have had too many distractions. Also, I have done re-touch and restortation work on older images and there are areas where this definitely look manipulated. Just MHO.

Indeed. The first Box Brownies were not available until 1888, and they were the first to utilise the *new* celluloid films. But like you said they had very limited adjustments and it was just not possible to produce shallow dof images with them. Cares-de-Visite were pretty much studio based and to some extent dying out by the 1870's.

Relatively *fast* film became available from around the late 1870's with dry gelatine plates and with it so did *snapshot exposures*. Also around this time, when photography became more available to everybody, so did the idea that serious photographers were *artists*. Until this point there was a far greater opinion towards regarding photography as a documentary medium then there was towards an artistic one. Though some did explore this they were the minority.

Interestingly one of these photographers, Lady Clementine Hawarden did capture portraits that were far more of the *modern* aesthetic:

LAVENDER REVIEW: LESBIAN POETRY & ART: Lady Clementina Hawarden

These differ from Juliet Margaret Cameron's images who sought to evoke mood with the soft focus of her subjects.

Now though plain backgrounds were widely used in portraiture, (around the 1870's far more detailed ones started to become the fashion), they were not done by shallow dof. William Henry Jackson's portraits of the native Americans being typical:

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942)

Here is a self portrait that shows how they were done:

Print Collection - William Henry Jackson, 8/92

So though the ideas of plain backgrounds were entirely of the period, and also, though scorned by *serious* photographers, was the use of dof to soften the background.

But...

I'm willing to place money that you will not find one single example of this where it has been done AFTER the event. This way of reworking images is entirely from a digital age. The trouble is that when we look at or edit images we do so from our own point of understanding and experience and so do and see things against what *we* understand as being normal for our time.

In the 1870's backgrounds were altered BEFORE the exposure was made.

I vote fake.

EDIT: Interesting to note the blurring in Jackson's "Running Antelope" portrait. This is consistent with a stopped down Pretzel lens where the centre is sharper and the edges blurred, where in the cat portrait the edges of the cat are blurred. More consistent with digital processing. To hide a modern background??