Prayer Man

First topic message reminder :

Original Prayer Man thread at the Education Forum
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20354-oswald-leaving-tsbd/

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G'day,
I have to say I find it oh so mildly amusing reading some of the comments, thoughts and rants associated on other forums regarding Prayer Man / Oswald on the front steps. It's sad really, watching people who have spent a lifetime married to an idea or a theory, only to witness that idea or theory shattering into a thousand pieces and not accepting the inevitable singular conclusion which is staring them in the face. To Greg Parker, Sean Murphy and all the other amazing researchers following the path of truth in this case I tips me Lid.

Mick

I see now thank you, but I remain wed to the model. I should add that the protractor and map graphic calculations that I showed were all a check of what the model being placed into Google earth had calculated automatically, and it checked perfectly. Got to go forward on that basis.

Straightened out, this pretty much confirms for me what is seen in Darnell, and that the shadow needs to go way more eastwards.
Nope not giving up... 

Bart, I disagree with your comment about the shadow on Frazier, I believe Stancak has the sun's angle correct and the shadow is caused by the Lintel over the entrance.


According the the NASA sun calculator, the sun's azimuth on 22/11/63 was 185.22.

So combine the azimuth 185.22˚  and the offset of the TSBd at 13˚ W of North and you get 18˚ which is what Stancak arrived at with his Google earth plot.

That looks like a cool app Barto. What is it? I see it's showing 175.4 for the azimuth and my lookup was 184.9, which is very close to Ray's. I'm wondering if it's showing the time in a different time zone maybe? That would throw off the results. Then again, maybe it's me in the wrong time zone. Need to compare notes. Please post what you're using.

Ray the lintel indeed is responsible for the shadow on Frazier as per red arrows..
Andrej's angle is way too sharp. Frazier in Darnell shows this.
And he is even more wrong about his occupants on the steps in his 3d drawing compared to Darnell

The app is called Sun Surveyor.

Bought Sun Surveyor. (7.99 US) Set the time, date, and location as you did. Got the same azimuth number as you did. Set the compass so it centered on the building cornice parallel to Houston. Taped a folded paper to my phone so the edge lined up on the sun direction line. Took another piece of folded paper and lined it's edge up with the cornice line. Drafted the cornice line onto the paper lined up on the sun direction line using the folded edge as a straight edge. Measured the angle between the paper edge and the drafted cornice line using a protractor. I shit you not, it came out almost exactly 18.9 degrees! (that is what I had shown for that angle earlier on this thread). 

In comparing the image on your phone to the image on my phone, there is no difference. I can't explain the listed azimuth discrepancy from the Navy tool I used, but the outcome is exactly the same and this is the sun angle used in my model. I rest my case! 

Great exercise. Thanks for questioning my work. It made me triple check it. Plus now I have a really cool new app. Barto, you are a great researcher and an award winning authority on PM, SFE, etc. Plus you're tough as nails. You have done more to advance PM into the spotlight of rational discourse (such as it is) than I will ever even think about doing. Seriously. Thank you! 

Truth is the only goal.

This is wrong!




Take another (!) good look at Darnell.
Frazier I already pointed out and btw it makes no difference which way he is turned.
Now look at the shadow above Frazier. See that patch going from dark to light?
Way past midway of the stairs.



That does not rhyme with any calculation(s) provided by any app/institution.
Nor does Lovelady and Shelley in Wiegman.

Impossible.

Because his body is turned, the shadow travels downward as the distance between the lintel and the points on his body increase. Similar to how the shadow would move down on his body if he backed up. His right shoulder is further from the lintel than his left shoulder is, so the shadow gets longer as it moves from his left shoulder to his right shoulder. Note the lintel shadow on the floor (need to open image in new tab).

It makes no difference, whatever object is placed there of whatever shape, the top left corner would be hitting it.

You and Stancak also use a 2d shadowline in a 3d drawing, it ought to look like a sphere, like cupping your left hand and pretend to create a shadow w that as such. The shadow is not just created by the west wall but by the top bit as well.

The 2D view is still from inside the model. It is a feature in Sketchup; parallel projection, top view is a 2D plan view of the 3D model. Switch modes and you get the perspective view with three vanishing points (or two if so selected). One can also adjust the field of view in perspective mode. It's ALL in the same model, and it is definitely the correct interpretation of the Darnell photo. Sketchup is not mickey mouse software. It really works! Here it is again in higher contrast.

For those of us who have worked in a dark room using film cameras, the technical details in the following are easy to skip, but there are those who have never and never will work with silver halide / black and white photography, so please indulge me.

Yesterday we enjoyed the traditional 4th of July family gathering, which always includes sitting around the table on the deck that comes off the back of the house. The house has windows of course and these windows are the type that crank to the outside like a little door would do, except it's a window, not a door. I sat on the side of the table facing the house so the people across from me had their backs to the house, within 2 or 2 1/2 feet of the wall. A window was open to the left side of these people and at the angle from where I sat, I saw their reflections in the glass. It was kind of hazy and a little bit overcast. The big umbrella set into the middle of the table was open, so we were out of any direct sunlight had there been some, but there was still plenty of daylight playing all around. The reflection in the glass in the window of the people sitting to one side of it was almost as bright as the light coming off the people themselves, and the images were crystal clear. It was regular clear window glass, yet with the relatively darker interior of the room behind the window, the glass was acting just like a mirror. As I said, the reflected images of these people were only slightly darker than the people themselves appeared to be given the light that was striking the retinas inside my eyes.

It then occurred to me if I were to adjust the settings on a movie camera to correctly record the lighting levels and imagery that I was observing, then anything else in that scene that was being struck by direct sunlight (if there had been some yesterday) would be grossly overexposed. The silver halide in the emulsion that is coating the plastic film inside the movie camera would reach it's fully activated exposure value, resulting in fully clear areas on the film, which in turn result in overexposed white areas on the film. That is why we need light meters, various film speeds, various shutter speeds, and various aperture settings. It all works together to get the light levels striking the film to be within the range that will render a gray scale on the film that matches the shade variations in the image, or at least in some part or parts of the image. If the min to max light level in the image overall falls outside of the range of min to max light exposure level that the film can handle, then there will be overexposed or underexposed portions in imagery.

In the Darnel film this is exactly what we see. The light settings that Darnel happened to have were perfect for PM in the shade. His reflection as he stands in the corner, with the plate glass behind him is almost as brightly lit but not quite as brightly lit as he is. The brightest portion of that reflection is the back of his left upper arm or possibly his right hand placed upon the curving back quarter of his left upper rib cage.

Furthermore, everywhere else in the Darenel movie images that are being struck by direct sunlight are indeed grossly overexposed. Any white skin is at a fully saturated white level (Frazier and all the other white skinned people or light colored clothing that was struck by direct sunlight). They can not get any whiter because too much energy has activated the chemicals on the film. However, over in the shade, PM's reflection is perfectly exposed capturing the full range of light to dark in both his own image and in his own reflected image. It's just blurry because of the camera motion.

After yesterday, there is no doubt in my mind about this whatsoever.

Jake Sykes wrote: Sketchup is not mickey mouse software. It really works! Here it is again in higher contrast.]

I used Jake's work with Sketchup in the "Wrong Way Shadows" video.

 
 
I also used a trial version of Sketchup to help me build the graphic I used in the First to Second Evolution series:
 


And I used Jake's Sketchup work in the "Baker's Run" video:
 
 

It's a solid, reliable application. As with any mathematical model, you put in the right data, you get the right result.

Jake Sykes wrote:For those of us who have worked in a dark room using film cameras, the technical details in the following are easy to skip, but there are those who have never and never will work with silver halide / black and white photography, so please indulge me.

Yesterday we enjoyed the traditional 4th of July family gathering, which always includes sitting around the table on the deck that comes off the back of the house. The house has windows of course and these windows are the type that crank to the outside like a little door would do, except it's a window, not a door. I sat on the side of the table facing the house so the people across from me had their backs to the house, within 2 or 2 1/2 feet of the wall. A window was open to the left side of these people and at the angle from where I sat, I saw their reflections in the glass. It was kind of hazy and a little bit overcast. The big umbrella set into the middle of the table was open, so we were out of any direct sunlight had there been some, but there was still plenty of daylight playing all around. The reflection in the glass in the window of the people sitting to one side of it was almost as bright as the light coming off the people themselves, and the images were crystal clear. It was regular clear window glass, yet with the relatively darker interior of the room behind the window, the glass was acting just like a mirror. As I said, the reflected images of these people were only slightly darker than the people themselves appeared to be given the light that was striking the retinas inside my eyes.

It then occurred to me if I were to adjust the settings on a movie camera to correctly record the lighting levels and imagery that I was observing, then anything else in that scene that was being struck by direct sunlight (if there had been some yesterday) would be grossly overexposed. The silver halide in the emulsion that is coating the plastic film inside the movie camera would reach it's fully activated exposure value, resulting in fully clear areas on the film, which in turn result in overexposed white areas on the film. That is why we need light meters, various film speeds, various shutter speeds, and various aperture settings. It all works together to get the light levels striking the film to be within the range that will render a gray scale on the film that matches the shade variations in the image, or at least in some part or parts of the image. If the min to max light level in the image overall falls outside of the range of min to max light exposure level that the film can handle, then there will be overexposed or underexposed portions in imagery.

In the Darnel film this is exactly what we see. The light settings that Darnel happened to have were perfect for PM in the shade. His reflection as he stands in the corner, with the plate glass behind him is almost as brightly lit but not quite as brightly lit as he is. The brightest portion of that reflection is the back of his left upper arm or possibly his right hand placed upon the curving back quarter of his left upper rib cage.

Furthermore, everywhere else in the Darenel movie images that are being struck by direct sunlight are indeed grossly overexposed. Any white skin is at a fully saturated white level (Frazier and all the other white skinned people or light colored clothing that was struck by direct sunlight). They can not get any whiter because too much energy has activated the chemicals on the film. However, over in the shade, PM's reflection is perfectly exposed capturing the full range of light to dark in both his own image and in his own reflected image. It's just blurry because of the camera motion.

After yesterday, there is no doubt in my mind about this whatsoever.

Nice analysis, Jake. I agree. I've no dark room experience, but it's hard to resolve high contrast situations where there are sharp distinct lines between shadow and light. You have to focus on one or the other.
 
You get the light portion right and the shadow portion seems to go black (perhaps what we see in Wiegman). You get the shadow part right and the light portions look white, blob'ish even.
 
If the light settings for PM in Darnell are optimum, that tells me that when we get scans done on the original film, we should be able to see PM with great clarity.

Thank you very much Stan. You've got it. I've never been more confident that PM's reflection was duly recorded in the glass while the rest of the image was reduced to burned blobs of over-scorched film emulsion. Any hotter and the cellulose would have melted. Some may wish it did.

Jake,

as someone who has worked in the film and TV game for just over forty years-worked on 16mm film- worked in darkrooms and used the dreaded black bags to change film stock reels on 40 degree days and still currently involved at a professional level I can honestly say that if we were to get the original piece of celluloid from Darnell's camera or one generation removed we would all be able to wander off into the sunset. I don't say that lightly, I am absolutely convinced we would be able to ID the figure in the corner atop of the stairs. 100%

To my mind Darnell's news footage is exposed within the bounds, however it's hard to conclude anything as we do not know the source of the footage or the frames and how far removed the copies we're looking at are from the original.

A lot of what we see especially today of any of the JFK images are the result of making copies of copies and then downloading those films and photographs to the internet. I know all of us here appreciate this.

I really just wanted to reiterate what you and Stan have said. Looking at the above image -  the still frame from the 16mm Darnell news footage we can see the enormous latitude in the film stock despite it most likely being far removed from the original source.

To my eye it has bundles of latitude, no motion blur and most importantly appears to be sharp to the eye.

Most news cameramen in days gone by when under pressure ie.in the event of an unfolding news drama would revert to guestimates for the exposures.

Depending of course on the film stock and the relative ASA rating the cameramen would when time was crucial use their trained eyes to guess the exposure. It wasn't rocket science either. ie. direct sun fstop 16, partial sun fstop 11, Cloud cover fstop 5.6 -8 and so on.

Mick Purdy wrote:Jake,

as someone who has worked in the film and TV game for just over forty years-worked on 16mm film- worked in darkrooms and used the dreaded black bags to change film stock reels on 40 degree days and still currently involved at a professional level I can honestly say that if we were to get the original piece of celluloid from Darnell's camera or one generation removed we would all be able to wander off into the sunset. I don't say that lightly, I am absolutely convinced we would be able to ID the figure in the corner atop of the stairs. 100%

To my mind Darnell's news footage is exposed within the bounds, however it's hard to conclude anything as we do not know the source of the footage or the frames and how far removed the copies we're looking at are from the original.

A lot of what we see especially today of any of the JFK images are the result of making copies of copies and then downloading those films and photographs to the internet. I know all of us here appreciate this.

I really just wanted to reiterate what you and Stan have said. Looking at the above image -  the still frame from the 16mm Darnell news footage we can see the enormous latitude in the film stock despite it most likely being far removed from the original source.

To my eye it has bundles of latitude, no motion blur and most importantly appears to be sharp to the eye.

Most news cameramen in days gone by when under pressure ie.in the event of an unfolding news drama would revert to guestimates for the exposures.

Depending of course on the film stock and the relative ASA rating the cameramen would when time was crucial use their trained eyes to guess the exposure. It wasn't rocket science either. ie. direct sun fstop 16, partial sun fstop 11, Cloud cover fstop 5.6 -8 and so on.

Mick, just to be clear, are you saying you don't think the figure is an obese lady holding a leg of lamb........and wearing a wig in a professional situation?

Mick Purdy wrote:Mick, just to be clear, are you saying you don't think the figure is an obese lady holding a leg of lamb........and wearing a wig in a professional situation?


Spot on Steely, no fat lady holding the leg of lamb in that pic, but she sure gonna be singin' loud and proud mighty soon.

Cheers Mick.
Could be a hotdog....

Great work,Guys.