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.

Here's the page from Farid's paper showing his result. When I first read the paper I thought it was a bit strange that this was shown in a small dim and dark image, but now I know why. Farid doesn't want you to notice that the figure has been 'verticalised'. The Sneaky Bastard! The ground plane going across at a slight angle I suppose is meant to help with the illusion that the figure is supposed to be unbalanced. I originally thought that the figure, which I have called 'Graphic Man' was a bit too vertical, but didn't think any more of it. 

Here is a large image of Graphic Man taken from an article on the New Atlas website
https://newatlas.com/backyard-photo-lee-harvey-oswald-pose-authentic/39924/
(see view gallery in article)

Here is a promo tryptich taken from the BBC online article "The Hidden Signs that can reveal if a photo is fake". This is a BBC puff piece PR article on Farid.


http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170629-the-hidden-signs-that-can-reveal-if-a-photo-is-fake

It seems here that Farid modified the original version of the promo image by reducing the extra tilt to from 3 degrees to 2. He then altered the background of Fish Man to line up with the ground in the photo and put some clothes on him. Perhaps he worried that British audiences were not as stupid as US audiences. Not sure about that but it doesn't pay to take chances I guess.

One goof I have made is forgetting that the centre of gravity in a person is somewhere in the middle of their body. Therefore a 3-D model is necessary to determine its position in relation to the boundary of the feet.

Therefore you cannot use the centre of gravity on the surface of the 2-D picture to determine anything with regard to stability without the 3-D model. So the picture with a line drawn down as I showed previously (see below) is wrong. It has not accounted for the fact that centre of gravity is actually further back into Oswald's body, and therefore the vertical line will land closer to his feet.



WRONG!!

Actually I'm not sure about the above. I don't really know anything about the drawing of the vertical lines from centre of gravity to the ground business.

Here is a picture of Fish Man with the vertical centre of gravity line extended through his torso. This shows that the figure is essentially vertical. This line goes through the bolt handle and through the figure's left eye.




Next is the original C133A with the same line drawn through the bolt handle and Oswald's left eye.




Next is the image that I believe Farid should have used to fit his 3-D model. This is C133A with the fence post parallel to the edge of the photo. This means (if the fence post is vertical) that the line of gravity in the photo is aligned with the line of gravity in the actual physical backyard. I have again drawn the same line between the bolt handle and Oswald's left eye.


ddd

Here is the C133A that has been rotated 3 degrees from the paper with same line drawn through Oswald's left eye and bolt handle from rifle. It seems that 3-D model is not even fitted to this image correctly.

I've taken Farid's promo triptych from the New Atlas website

https://newatlas.com/backyard-photo-lee-harvey-oswald-pose-authentic/39924/

and cut off the wire frame image on the right. It is now a diptych. This makes comparisons between the (cranked over) Oswald and Fish Man more simple.

Here you can see that the legs of the figures are quite parallel to each other. This is because Farid matched the 3-D model to the legs properly. Since the legs are long elements any discrepancy in angle here would be obvious to the eye. 




However adding the line between the figures' left eye and bolt handle shows that the torso has been made more vertical. On the Oswald figure this line ends at Oswald's front foot, but on Fish Man it ends near to the back foot. Making the torso more vertical is harder for the eye to detect as Oswald's torso is a dark color with shadows etc impinging on it.

Here's an interesting development. The Dartmouth News article has already disappeared from the internet. Since I thought that something like this might happen I took screenshots of it. The URL is (or was):

https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2015/10/settling-controversy-over-photo-lee-harvey-oswald




If you try to access this URL you now get this error message



Fast work from the boys at Dartmouth College!

For those curious about the article, I took screenshots of the whole thing. 

Here's a google search screenshot showing I last accessed the site on 23/11/18, so the disappearance of this online article, unless it comes back again, occurred in the last week.

 

False alarm. The Dartmouth News article is back again.

Here is C133B showing the fence aligned to the photo. OnScreenProtractor measures the angle at 270 degrees, ie vertical. Notice that Oswald is standing fairly vertical.  


Now here is C133C. Perhaps I've been doing this too long and I'm starting to see things. The fence angle is 265.97 according to OnScreenProtractor, that is, the fence is tilted over approx 4 degrees, yet Oswald is still standing vertically. This picture is so bad it looks like Oswald is standing on the side of a hill. 



dddd

The above images show that C133C is totally incompatible with C133B. The problem with the backyard photos is that Oswald should be parallel to the fence post in all the photos. However he is not parallel to the fence post in C133A and C133C. These test photos show what should have happened to Oswald in those photos:
 
 






 
 
As the camera is tilted, everything in the photo should tilt, including Oswald. The fence post tilts, but Oswald does not. This proves that something funny is going on, such as the bungling hand of the CIA. Distortion may be present, but Oswald and the fence post are close together in the photograph, so that in my opinion whatever distortion is present should affect both elements. Oswald does not appear particularly distorted, so why should the fence post appear distorted?
 
I am speculating something like the following scenario. Farid’s phoney C133A which has been rotated such that the fence post is now at 5 degrees from the vertical, was originally similar to C133C. Thus Oswald was originally vertical in C133A. 
 
Close to the time of the assassination the plotters received the photos from the CIA paste-up shop. To their horror the photos were a complete balls-up. The compositor had perhaps been confused by all the verticals in the background, perhaps the wires of communication had got crossed, perhaps he was an idiot, perhaps the paste-up job had to be finished in too much of a hurry etc etc. Except for C133B Oswald was pasted vertically into backgrounds that were slanted.
 
From the appearance of C133A my guess is that this was intended to be the ‘money shot’ (similar to WTC2). This is the nicely composed image that is intended for repeated media coverage, magazine covers etc. C133A was originally intended to have the vertical fence post in C133B as the background and so appear like a photo that, for some miraculous reason, the amateur photographer (Marina) got right. The other two photos should have shown Oswald on a tilt along with the fence. These were intended to look like practice photos or bodges etc. Having used an Imperial Reflex camera I can say that it is very easy to tilt the camera while looking into the little screen on the top.
 
So C133C was chucked out, but C133A had to be kept. C133B in my opinion would cause problems if used by itself. Oswald’s neck just does not look finished enough in this photo which might have caused unwanted scrutiny. Therefore C133A was rotated back 3 degrees to a compromise position so that the fence angle is not so noticeable and Oswald is not tilting too far to the left. However Oswald was now tilted far enough to cause the suspicion about his balance which has gone on for decades.

Here is C133A showing angle Oswald makes to fence post.




Here is C133C showing angle of Oswald to fence post:




Here is C133B showing angle Oswald makes to fence post:





According to the measurements in this and images showing measurements of angles of fence posts previously posted,

C133A 277.62 - 268.22 = 9.40 degrees

C133C 274.14 - 265.97 = 8.17 degrees

C133B 270.42 - 270.00 = 0.42 degrees

Since in the physical backyard the fence post is close to vertical and Oswald must stand fairly close to vertical, C133A and C133C are physically impossible. This proves that the Oswald figures in C133A and C133C are paste-ins.

Here is a photo of cop standing in backyard. Note that as the fence is tilted, the cop remains parallel to the fence. Compare this to C133C, which if had been faked properly would have resembled this picture.

 

I’m just wondering why LHO is wearing his Marine Corps ring in these photos that convinced America he was the alienated commie rat who killed the president. And why LHO was wearing same at his arrest. Isn’t this the ‘tell’ hiding in plain sight that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be?

The Hany Farid paper can now be found here:

https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downloads/publications/jdfsl15.pdf

"I’m just wondering why LHO is wearing his Marine Corps ring in these photos that convinced America he was the alienated commie rat who killed the president. And why LHO was wearing same at his arrest. Isn’t this the ‘tell’ hiding in plain sight that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be?"


1. As far as the photos are concerned, obviously the use of the Marine Corps ring is intended to create the impression that the figure is Oswald.


2. Oswald obviously was not worried about the discordance between his Marine Corp widgets and his apparent belief in socialism. If you look at the film of Oswald handing out leaflets in New Orleans, he is wearing the bangle on his left wrist. (For many years I thought this was a watch Oswald was wearing) 


Maybe it would work as a conversation starter, for example Oswald being a Marine and all that, had converted to socialism but did not reject his Marine buddies and military experiences etc etc. Since military personnel are considered in the US as the equivalent of saints, showing overtly but discreetly via the widgets that he had military experience would I assume usually create positive impressions on most people he met.

MrScrambledEgg wrote:"I’m just wondering why LHO is wearing his Marine Corps ring in these photos that convinced America he was the alienated commie rat who killed the president. And why LHO was wearing same at his arrest. Isn’t this the ‘tell’ hiding in plain sight that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be?"


1. As far as the photos are concerned, obviously the use of the Marine Corps ring is intended to create the impression that the figure is Oswald.


2. Oswald obviously was not worried about the discordance between his Marine Corp widgets and his apparent belief in socialism. If you look at the film of Oswald handing out leaflets in New Orleans, he is wearing the bangle on his left wrist. (For many years I thought this was a watch Oswald was wearing) 


Maybe it would work as a conversation starter, for example Oswald being a Marine and all that, had converted to socialism but did not reject his Marine buddies and military experiences etc etc. Since military personnel are considered in the US as the equivalent of saints, showing overtly but discreetly via the widgets that he had military experience would I assume usually create positive impressions on most people he met.

LI had wondered why I could not find any similar Marine rings - now I know. It was wasn't a Marine ring at all. He had purchased it in Japan.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=m1E4DgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT102&dq=oswald%20ring%20minsk&pg=PT102#v=onepage&q=oswald%20ring%20minsk&f=false

Well I’m afraid I’m going to have to apologize to readers for all the previous posts in this ‘Angle of the Dangle’ thread as they are mostly lurid madness on my part. Yes, MrScrambledEgg is not called this for nothing.
 
I would ask any readers left at this point to unsee all the previous posts in this thread written by me except perhaps the first. This should not be too difficult in this era of political correctness and socially adaptive reality. Compared to the fact that Benjamin Franklin named positive and negative electricity the wrong way around and somebody invented Twitter, my sins are minor.
 
Farid did not change the angle of 133A as I have alleged, at least not on the evidence available. This was due to me looking at the wrong photograph. I have been using this photograph as a reference to the original 133A since I could not find any unmodified or uncropped 133A images on the Internet. I had vaguely assumed that because it was copyrighted ‘Corbis’ this image would be unmodified. This assumption was wrong. This image has been de-tilted so that the staircase post behind Oswald is vertical.
 
[Additionally my effort to draw lines between Oswald’s left eye and rifle bolt handle was comically inept. Farid did not use an actual model of the Carcano on his figure. The bolt handle is over the centre of the body on Fish Man but over Oswald’s left leg in the actual photo, rendering any comparison useless.]
 




 


However I have finally found an unmodified and uncropped image of 133A.
 


Ironically these full images are found in Farid’s papers themselves, which is further evidence of my comical ineptitude. Farid appears to have used the correct photo to fit the 3-D model, contrary to my speculations which went off the deep end.
 
However this does not mean that Farid’s paper isn’t fake news. The original argument at the start of this ‘Angle of the Dangle’ thread is not changed. 

Farid’s paper is about the projection of a vertical line from the figure’s center of gravity to the ground.  eg.
 
“The overall 3-D center of mass c is projected onto the ground plane in the direction of gravity (ie. along the z-axis defined to be the axis perpendicular to the ground plane). Shown in Figure 5(a) is the 3-D center of mass c, and its projection onto the ground plane, c.” pp 90,94.
 
However Farid does not say anything about how he derives the z-axis except by implication that it is the same as the z-axis of the 2-D photograph. This is correct only if the photograph is not tilted or rotated sideways in any way. There is, in fact, evidence that the photograph is tilted. If this is correct it means that Farid’s conclusions are invalid.

Here are two versions of 133A in Farid's papers. The first is from his 2009 paper.




The angle of the fence is this photo is 265.77 (4.23) degrees




The angle of the fence in this photo is 265.63 (4.37) degrees. This is a good agreement that they are the same photo. (It does not mean of course that Farid actually used it for his model fitup but it would appear to be the 'correct' 133A). Note that the angle of fence is used only as a reference to the tilt of the photo and is not used in any analysis.

ddd

 
The result of Farid’s paper is shown as a yellow dot representing the projected centre of mass and the yellow boundary representing the base of support.
 
 The fit of the 3D model to the 2D photograph is shown in Fig4.
 

 
 
No attempt was made in the paper to test the fit of the model except as follows:

“ Because of the inherent ambiguity in constructing a 3D model from a single 2D image , there are a number of 3D geometries that are consistent with the 2D image. The 3D model constructed here and the subsequent analysis show that there exists a consistent and plausible 3D scene geometry.” (p89)
 
and further
 
“One way to validate our 3D model is to align the rendering of the 3D model with the original backyard photo. The alignment, Figure 4, shows a good agreement between our model and the photo. A second way to our 3D model is to verify that the shadows cast by our model match the shadows in the original photo. .....As can be seen in Figure 4 the cast shadow on the ground plane closely matches the original photo. And shown in the lower panels of Figure 4 is a magnified view of Oswald’s head showing good agreement of the shadows under the nose, lip and neck.” (p90)
 
 
In other words, no test of the fit of the 3D model to the 2D photo was made except to include the ground shadows in the fitting process. The paper does not include, for example, any test fittings of the 3D model to photographs of real persons standing in similar poses. This would show how well the model could be expected to fit a known real-life photograph, not one that has been possibly faked.
 
In fact, if you look at Figure 4, the fit of the 3D model outline to the 2D photograph is extremely poor. The legs do not fit properly and the fit of the right elbow is extremely bad. Since Farid provides no test photographs/fitups to compare with, we do not know if this is normal or anomalous.
 
Here is a blowup of the fit of the 3D model to the feet.
 
 
 
 
As you can see, the toes of the 3D modelled feet are located in front of the figure’s boots, whereas in reality they should be located behind the front of the figure’s boots. This is not nitpicking. The whole premise of the paper is based on the location of the centre of gravity in relation to the boundary of the feet. If the feet are misplaced, then the paper’s result is invalid.
 
If Farid’s paper were a genuine attempt to determine the facts, I would have expected a large blowup of the 133A feet area and the 3D model feet area to show that the fit in this location matched exactly. But there is not, and naturally of course the fudge is in the direction that matches Farid’s desire to prove the photograph is genuine.
 
The correct location for the 3D model’s feet are the location of the feet of the  figure in the 2D photograph. Although it is impossible to estimate exactly, you can roughly estimate that the 3D models feet are approx 1” shifted away from their correct location. This would bring the projected center of gravity approx 1” closer to the boundary. Since the projected center of gravity is shown in the paper to be approx 2” from the boundary, this is not an inconsequential amount of fudge.

Another particularly poor fit of Farid’s 3D model to the 2D photograph is that of the figure’s right elbow.
 



 
This is of interest as one of the criticisms of the photograph is the unnatural appearance of the figure’s left elbow. This is discussed in Jack White’s video ‘Fake’, as follows:
 
“In 133A, White noticed the upper left arm of the figure is too short and the elbow abnormally high, perhaps as much as 6-8 inches above the waist. In this photo there is simply a hand gripping the rifle. In dozens of tests trying to recreate this picture no-one has been able to duplicate this unnatural posture” 22.01mins
 
You will notice that the 3D model fit of the left elbow is perfect, but the right elbow fit is a disaster. What has happened? Has Farid, being fully aware of this criticism, carefully fitted up the 3D model to the unnatural position of the left elbow but as a consequence subsequently left the right elbow of the 3D model out of position? (Bear in mind that the 3D model has a ‘skeleton’ and can’t be pushed around like a piece of jelly). 
 
My guess is that Farid was faced with two options. Fit the 3D model to the right elbow correctly and leave the left elbow fit completely out of position, or fit the 3D model to the left elbow correctly and leave the right elbow completely out of position. If he chose the former, he would be validating the criticisms of the conspiracy theorists, ie that the left arm is probably a paint job. Therefore he chose the least objectionable option, to leave the right elbow out of position.
 
Of course, he could have chosen to investigate why his 3D model does not fit the 2D photograph correctly in this area. He could have provided test fit-ups with known real photographs of real persons in similar positions. But he does not, since that might lead him to the wrong answer.

For the benefit of those on the EF discussing shadows and perspective. Do these folks understand the difference between a point source and the sun source? A point source, being tiny like a flashlight bulb (led's these days), radiates out from the center of a sphere, which makes the shadows that it casts converge toward the point source or center of the sphere, no perspective involved, although a photo of such convergence would superimpose perspective into it, to the extent that it could be perceived in the photo. 

The sun on the other hand is huge. Much, much larger than the earth. The radiation from the sun reaches the entire face of the earth with a flood of perfectly parallel rays and therefore all shadows cast by the sun are parallel to each other everywhere on earth. The shadows are altered only by the shape and orientation of the objects casting them. Any convergence one ever observes is solely due to perspective.

Just because the sun is small in the sky has no effect on shadows converging toward it, they are all parallel like railroad tracks. Any convergence is due to the nature of perspective and optics, and not because shadows are converging toward the sun like it was a point source in the sky. The sun only appears small due to, you guessed it, perspective. Again, the shadows are parallel. 

It appears there is a disconnect on this point as I watch them argue, draw pictures and analyze photographs.