The Backyard Photos: Ring Transposition and and LHO stance

First topic message reminder :

I’ve been interested in the Oswald backyard photos off and on for many years. Recently due to having too much time on my hands I decided to take another squizz at these iconic fakes.
 
I had read somewhere that in one of the photos Oswald (or at least the supposed Oswald) is shown wearing a ring. So I’ve always known that 133C shows the figure wearing a ring on his left hand. You can imagine my consternation therefore while taking a squizz at 133B, I discover that Oswald is shown wearing a ring on his right hand. WTF?
 
Well its been several days now I and no matter which way I look at the photos and scratch my head, 133C always shows the ring on the left hand and 133B always shows the ring on the right hand. I therefore thought that I had better run this past the bright fellows on this forum for another opinion.
 
It seems to me as if the compositing artist has flipped the negative of the body thereby placing the ring on the right hand side. Then perhaps he had to finish up 133B in a hurry for some reason and left a few items outstanding.
 
Additionally, if you look at an enlargement of the truncated fingers in 133A there is a visible ring mark on the ring finger. It looks as if the person posing for the camera has now removed his ring and the negative of the body has then been flipped over leaving the ring mark on the right hand. So in summary we have:
 
133C ring on left hand
133B ring on right hand
133A no ring on either hand, but ring mark on right hand
 
In my opinion this ring transposition is pretty much fatal to any chance for authenticity the photos may have. The question is therefore: why hasn’t this rather obvious problem been discussed before? I spent a long time looking up what exists of the backyard photo literature and came up with nothing.
 
Surely for example the late great Jack White would have seen this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Jack never looked at 133C in any detail. I found this quote in Jim Marr’s book Crossfire (2013):
 
“Furthermore, in recent years White discovered other problems with the backyard photos. In one picture, the tips of Oswald’s fingers appear to be missing as does one end of the rifle’s telescopic sight. White claimed this was due to sloppy airbrushing on the part of whoever faked the picture. In one photo, the figure can be seen wearing a large ring on his right hand, yet the ring is missing in the other photos.”
 
In his 1990 video “Fake”, White describes how he is able to discern a watch on the left arm in 133B, apparently oblivious to the fact the watch is completely visible in 133C.

I'm afraid that I cannot get this site's image posting feature to work however these photos are readily available on the web.

 

Two More "backyard photographs"

[size=undefined]T[size=undefined]wo further "backyard photographs" gained some notoriety when they were discovered separately in later years. The first came to light when Oswald's friend George de Mohrenschildt returned from Haiti in April 1967 and found the third "backyard photograph" in a piece of luggage which he had left in storage during his absence (9). On the back were two handwritten inscriptions: "To my friend George from Lee Oswald - 5/IV/63" and, in Russian Cyrillic script: "Hunter of fascists ha-ha-ha!!!"[/size][/size]
[size=undefined]133-A deMohrenschildt [size=undefined](HSCA Exhibit)[/size][size=undefined]

Some researchers believe the first of these inscriptions is in Oswald's handwriting, but the style in which the date is written has long caused general concern. British researcher Anthony Summers states: "A researcher's check of the dozens of letters and documents written by Oswald has produced not one example of a date written like the one of the back of the photograph." (10).
However, in the course of researching this article, Melanie Swift has discovered a postcard written by Lee Harvey Oswald (in Minsk) to brother Robert (in Fort Worth) on which the date is written as 10/V/62 (11). In it, the message refers to Lee's daughter June as being "almost 3 months old now" and since she was born on 15th February 1962, that date (10/V/62) is obviously 10th May 1962. This provides a precedent for Lee writing a date in this "European" style with a Roman numeral indicating the month. It also tells us that the inscription on the de Mohrenschildt "backyard photograph" was written on 5th April 1963 - a date, incidentally, just five days prior to the attempt on the life of Major General Edwin A Walker (12).[/size][/size]
 

133-A deMohrenschildt back of photo[size=undefined](HSCA Exhibit)[/size]

[size=undefined]

The identity of the author of the second (Russian) inscription remains uncertain. It has been suggested that Marina Oswald may have been the writer (13). 

The photograph itself shows Oswald in a similar pose to that in CE 133A but with both arms held higher. Photographic analyst Jack White has claimed that the de Mohrenschildt photograph appears to have been taken with a far more sophisticated camera than the others. It allegedly shows far greater detail (14). We feel that further research is required in this area. (See note 3.)[/size]

133C-Dees (White)

http://www.jfklancer.com/byphotos.html

Article from 1995 by Ian Griggs, which might be of help.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1318#relPageId=17&tab=page

"If the photos do indeed depict a body double, it seems reasonable to assume they forget to have the double wear Oswald's ring for the first photo."

So did they stop the photo shoot and go get a Marine Corp ring at the Marine ring store, then shoot two more photos?"




No, its the wedding ring on the right hand that is missing not the Marine ring on the left hand.






The order of the photos is, supposedly, 133C , 133B, 133A. This is taken from the fact that the shadow of the power line moves up the staircase pole in that order.


In 133C you can see what is presumably the Marine ring on the left hand, and no ring on the right hand (although it appears the negative has been 'blurred' a bit)


In 133B you can see what appears to be another ring on the right hand, possibly a wedding ring. You cannot see the left hand in this photo.


In 133A you can see no rings on either hand, but there are marks that might be rings or not.


So it looks like they took 133C first, then realised that the 'Oswald' needed his wedding ring on his right hand, went to the local NATO spy store, obtained a Russian wedding ring and then took the second photo. Since the ring then disappears in the third photo I don't know what happened to it after that.

This issue was brought up by Ray Mitcham and possibly others however I thought I would elaborate on the subject and provide some graphic illustration. If this has already been done by others please excuse.
 
As has been pointed out for many years beginning probably with Jack White, C133A shows Oswald with a distinct lean to the left. So much so that it would appear that he is falling over.
 



 
In 2015, Hany Farid published a paper in the peer reviewed Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law entitled “A 3-D Stability Analysis of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Backyard Photo” Srivamshi Pittala, Emily Whiting, Hany Farid. Department of Computer Science Dartmouth College.
 
For those of us who do not live in the United States, this is not the Dartmouth, England of Royal Navy fame. Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university in Hanover New Hampshire.
 
Farid’s paper purported to show that the figure of Oswald in the C133A is not falling over but stable. This was done by setting up a 3-D model of the figure, calculating its centre of gravity and running a vertical line down to the ground. Since this line intersected the ground within the boundary of the feet, the figure was deemed stable according to physical theory. Thus this was held as another proof that C133A is authentic.
 

 
What’s wrong with the paper?
 
As Ray Mitcham pointed out Farid does not take into account the fact that C133A is tilted. This means that the camera has been rotated on its axis at the time of pressing the shutter such that all the subject matter in the image is vertically tilted over. This is most noticeable in the picket fence and fence post to the right and behind the Oswald figure.
 
Since the vertical axis of the ‘subject matter in the image’ (there is probably a technical term for this but I don’t know what it is) is fundamental to Farid’s thesis I naturally assumed that how the vertical axis was derived was discussed in the paper. Well I have read the paper several times and there is no discussion of this at all. Not anywhere that I can find. If I’m wrong please point out where.
 
It appears that Farid has taken the vertical axis for the purposes of his calculations as the edge of the image. This has nothing to do with the vertical axis of the subject matter of the image and thus the Oswald figure. This is such a fundamental mistake that I am still scratching my head over it.
 
If you detilt the image so that the fence post in the image is vertical then Oswald becomes really tilted indeed.
 
Having no computer graphic skills I used Image Composer, an ancient Microsoft graphics program to rotate C133A. (It appears to be tilted about 2 degrees). Then I drew a vertical line to the ground. As you can see, this intersects the ground well outside the boundary of the feet, thus proving the Oswald figure is unstable.
 


In my opinion no further calculations are necessary. Farid got his co-authors to calculate the centre of gravity of the figure. This does not change when the figure is rotated. The only change is the angle of the vertical axis from the centre of gravity.

Stop creating more BYP threads, there are at least 4 within the first 30 odd.

Thank you.

Just playing around here. Drew vertical lines (yellow) across the image to see how they line up with vertical structures (blue lines). I see a type of pincushion distortion fairly common in lenses, where straight lines are curved/tilted away from the center the farther you move away in either direction.
 

 
I would be nice if some honest expert could perform verifiable analysis. I've seen too many examples of experts trotted out to support the official story and they browbeat your with their "expertise," because how can they be questioned by conspiracy theorist lowlifes? Examples:

1.) PhD Luis Alvarez demonstrating how objects blow back toward the direction of the shot (to support the "jet effect" theory) which later was shown to be a deceptive farce by other tests.  
2.) Vincent Guinn presents his analysis of bullet fragments and CE-399 using neutron activation analysis to the HSCA, claiming the bullet fragments came from Oswald's rifle along with a tie-in to the Walker bullet. Bullshit—his data doesn't support his conclusions.

I believe nothing official. We need a fresh look—at everything.

Mr.

Scrambled eggs.

What Stan Dane said. Respectfully, I conclude that most of the verticals in the 133a pic are well -vertical. I absolutely agree with Stan.
Also what Barto said, and I'm guilty of this too, but we need to keep our topics in order...too many threads on the BYP's etc etc

There are simple tests which can be run on 133a BYP which destroy the idea that the photo is authentic.

Stan Dane wrote:Just playing around here. Drew vertical lines (yellow) across the image to see how they line up with vertical structures (blue lines). I see a type of pincushion distortion fairly common in lenses, where straight lines are curved/tilted away from the center the farther you move away in either direction.
 

 
I would be nice if some honest expert could perform verifiable analysis. I've seen too many examples of experts trotted out to support the official story and they browbeat your with their "expertise," because how can they be questioned by conspiracy theorist lowlifes? Examples:

1.) PhD Luis Alvarez demonstrating how objects blow back toward the direction of the shot (to support the "jet effect" theory) which later was shown to be a deceptive farce by other tests.  
2.) Vincent Guinn presents his analysis of bullet fragments and CE-399 using neutron activation analysis to the HSCA, claiming the bullet fragments came from Oswald's rifle along with a tie-in to the Walker bullet. Bullshit—his data doesn't support his conclusions.

I believe nothing official. We need a fresh look—at everything.

Well put Stan, nice work.
We can see that Oswald is not on the same plane as the picket fence, he is slightly rotated anti clockwise to it. Add the distortion from the lens to this and it creates the perception of verticals not being so. At least that's my take.

Thanks Stan,

Yes I was initially confused about all the verticals as well. What is the vertical axis of the photograph? Good question. However this FBI photo taken at the time cleared it up for me.



As you can see, the ground line and the fence post are perpendicular (or nearly so). Thus the fence post is the vertical axis of the photograph. It appears that the staircase is leaning a bit.

In Jack White's testimony to the HSCA he makes it (not very) clear that the fence post is the vertical:

 
Mr. White, did you analyze the position of the body in backyard
photograph A?
Mr. WHITE. Yes.
Mr. GENZMAN. Did you make a determination as to the body
stance in 133-A?
Mr. WHITE. Yes, I think the body stance is in position out of
balance with the background. If you compare the verticals in the
background to the balance point of the body, you find that the
figure could not be possibly standing in that position because it is
out of balance. If you make a parallel line from the center of the
chin that is PARALLEL TO THIS POST IN THE BACKGROUND, you find that
the point of balance falls approximately 3 to 4 inches outside the
weight-bearing foot. You can try this yourself by suspending a
plumb bob from your chin and in order to get it to fall at a point 3
or 4 inches outside your weight-bearing foot, you will be off balance
and you will fall over.
Mr. GENZMAN. Based on this analysis, what is your conclusion as
to whether the figure is part of the background or whether it has
been superimposed on the background?
Mr. WHITE. This is what led to my conclusion that the figures
have been superimposed over the background. In other words, if it
is impossible for a person to stand in that position in that background,
then the figure had to be photographed independently and
then pasted, if you will, or superimposed photomechanically on a
blank backyard photograph.
Mr. GENZMAN. Thank you, Mr. White. Would you return to your
seat.
Mr. White, based on all of your findings, is it your conclusion
that the backyard photographs are fakes?
Mr. WHITE. Yes.

 


Unfortunately in my opinion Jack did not state what he should have stated, that 133A is tilted. You can readily see that it is 133A is tilted by looking at 133B which is fairly level.

White's testimony to the HSCA was ignored by the photographic panel and they did not include testing the physical impossibility of the figure's stance in the 22 items they checked.

They in fact lied about the tilt of 133A, stating that the camera was held reasonably level:

 
The photographic technique improved appreciably during the sequence. For 133-C, the camera was not held level and the subject was not centered. The camera was rotated slightly as the shutter release was pressed. This caused the detail to be fairly sharp in the vicinity of the bush shown at the right, corresponding to the axis of rotation, while there is rotational blur elsewhere, such as in the area of the steps. In CE 133-B, the camera was held level and steady, but the subject's feet were not in the field of view. For CE 133-A, the camera was held reasonably level and steady, and the subject was well centered.

While writing this article I became aware that images on the Internet of C133A have all sorts of wildly varying fence angles. Which is the original fence angle? I cannot be absolutely certain without obtaining a copy from the US archives, however usually the square images appear to be the correct angle (about 2 degrees).




However in this promo tryptich credited to Farid and issued by him to magazines and so forth, if you examine the tilt angle of the fence post it is about 6 degrees. 



If you look closely you can see that the angle of the ground is much steeper than the angle of the 'ground' that Farid provided on his graphic. In other words, this is 100% proof that Farid faked his paper. In order to get his thesis to work, he had to increase the tilt to about 5 or 6 degrees in order to get the figure vertical enough to produce the desired result. The proof is right there in this image.

So not only did Farid ignore the tilt already present in the image, he in fact increased the tilt to get his idea to work. That's fraud in capital letters.

I've made a slight error above. In Jack White's testimony to the HSCA he refers to a post in the background. This is in fact not the fence post but the staircase post directly behind Oswald to the right.

This is shown in the 'Fake' documentary as follows:




and the photo reversed:



It does not affect the result however. You can take any post in the picture as the vertical axis and the figure will still be unbalanced, according to the method provided by Dr. Farid.

Since Dr. Farid has helpfully provided the centre of gravity of the figure, conspiracy theorists can now readily show that it is unbalanced. You can take any image of C133A no how it has been rotated, set the vertical it to the fence post or whatever post you like, run a line down from the centre of gravity, and you will see that the figure is unbalanced. Thanks Dr. Farid! Bwahahahaha!

For those who believe that C133A is not tilted, here is the same line drawn on the original photograph without any detilting.




As can be seen, a vertical line drawn from the centre of gravity as defined by Farid still lands outside the boundary of the feet. Therefore Oswald, even on the non-detilted original photo, is unbalanced.

This is why Farid had to fake it by tilting the original further over to get the desired result. 

(Note that I've drawn all these vertical lines by eyeball but you can see that the amount the figure is unbalanced renders this irrelevant)

Scrambledeggs, when you're referring to "tilted" I'm thinking you mean the image has been rotated in post or some such?

I refer you to Stan Danes post here which demonstrates to us what might be happening to the verticals in 133a.

Further, there have been requests made that you try and compile all BYP's material into the one thread. You've created at least 4 different BYP's related threads recently which should be all in the same thread. I'm no saint in this area, but it would be helpful if you could adhere to this whenever possible.

Finally, just as a matter of interest do you have a photographic background?

Sorry you've got me confused with someone else. This is (was) the second thread I've ever created on this forum.

Yes, when referring to 'tilt', I mean rotation around the centre of the photograph (roughly). Tilt or rotation or whatever it is called in a photograph is caused by angling the camera over to one side so that verticals in the picture do not align with the edge.

Nope I do not have any photographic or photogrammatic or whatever experience whatsoever.

MrScrambledEgg wrote:Sorry you've got me confused with someone else. This is (was) the second thread I've ever created on this forum.

Yes, when referring to 'tilt', I mean rotation around the centre of the photograph (roughly). Tilt or rotation or whatever it is called in a photograph is caused by angling the camera over to one side so that verticals in the picture do not align with the edge.

Nope I do not have any photographic or photogrammatic or whatever experience whatsoever.

In fairness, I do think there has been some confusion because recently, more than one person had created more than one BY thread.

In fact, a thorough search would probably reveal quite a few different threads on this one subject.

Ideally, we would all search on a subject before starting a new thread, to see if that subject already exists.  But the difficulty there is that the internal search is pretty shitty. To get all results, you need to select google for the search.

Sorry for the interruption, but I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn't just you creating threads on this.

Carry on.

Orangebicycle created hree of em, or 4...that is on the first page and the top of page two of the all threads.
Then we have a sticky which a lot of peeps seem to miss
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1159-back-yard-photography?highlight=Back+Yard+Photo
And that is where all of these threads should go to, or at least be merged into.

my bad got my scrambled eggs confused with orange bicycles, apologies all round.
I'll go back and recline in my seat sip my tea and ponder my past.

As Greg said,
Carry on!

Well that’s all the material I have, I leave it to those with fancy angle measuring and overlay software on their computers who may be interested to take it further if they wish.
 
I would however speculate on why Farid faked the paper. I would guess that it has something to do with the fact that he had two co-authors. From the Dartmouth College News webzine thing:
 
Dartmouth News
https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2015/10/settling-controversy-over-photo-lee-harvey-oswald
 
 
“Farid teamed with Assistant Professor Emily Whiting, who specializes in architectural geometry, computer-aided design, and 3-D fabrication. With the help of graduate student Srivamshi Pittala, they built a 3-D model of Oswald and posed this model to match his appearance in the backyard photo. ”
 
 
 
Farid is big on the idea that the visual system is spectacularly bad about reasoning about shadows and lighting and 3-D geometry. (see his short video on Youtube). Therefore when he started his project he may have assumed that while the figure in the photo looks unbalanced to the eye, it would in fact turn out to be balanced.
 
He then farmed out the grunt work of creating the model and calculating the centre of gravity to his assistants Whiting and Pittala. When he got the results back he then plugged it into some software or whatever and run the vertical line down to the ground.
 
To his horror he discovered that he had just proven in scientific terms that the figure was unbalanced and therefore the photograph was a fake. For Farid this would have been a big, big no no. He could never publish a paper saying this. His FBI sponsors would withdraw funding. He would join the ranks of the conspiracy theorists. He would be shunned by polite academic society. His career prospects would dry up etc etc etc.
 
However he was in a pickle. He had two assistants/students who done a lot of work and expected to be co-authors on a paper. That’s important for their careers. He couldn’t just fob them off and say he had cancelled the project, they would become suspicious. He had to go through with it. So he did what he’s probably done for the FBI a million times before, just tweaked it a bit so that it produced the ‘right’ answer. I would guess that his assistants Whiting and Pittala don’t know anything about it.

Here are  the best quality images of C133AB&C I can find on the Internet. As you can see the tilt or rotation of 133A is about the same as 133C. (if it is tilt or rotation)

133B shows the fence almost vertical, but you can see the fence behind it is not at the same angle. 




C133A above



C133B above

 


C133C above

Here is my attempt to measure the difference in angle of the fence between the image published in Farid's paper and the (assumed) original photo. The Farid photo angle is 265.27 and the original is 268.22, a difference of 3.05 degrees. Here is the screenshot of Farid's image:
 


Here is the screen shot of the original photo:

I used OnScreenProtractor to measure the angles. You can read the angles in tiny print just to the right of the circle.

Oops 268.22 - 265.27 = 2.95 degrees. Sorry.