Chris Bristow

Jeff, yes I have discovered the same things as you. It is interesting that she held it so steady. She also rotated the camera in 133a &c as if she was taking Oswald's lean into account. And since the image was upside down she would have to rotate the camera in the opposite direction. I have tried to understand his lean in 133a but I can't replicate it without one hand on the wall. I have measured the angle of his right foot and of his hips many times and find that when people 'duplicate' his pose they never get the hips and right foot correct. The only way for them to match Oswald's lean is to turn the foot and hip way out. But if you match his foot at 45 degrees and the hip at no more than 30 degrees( it is actually around 15 degrees, I round up to be extra fair) it becomes impossible if not absurdly awkward and painful on the right knee. His foot will measure 63 degrees of angle in the photo but from 12 feet away and 4 feet high, 40 degrees turns into 60+ degrees due to perspective. I have tested that. I am putting together a video on this lean in 133a that also demonstrates the perspective change from 40 to 60 degrees and how to find the angle of the hip. If my measurements of foot and hip stand up to scrutiny then Oswlad's pose in which he is able to line up his right shin, knee and the button on his jeans (not visible but located by the zipper flap) is ridiculous. Anyone who matches the stance correctly will find it so painful and awkward that they will have to come away with a nagging question. Even if he could maintain such a posture why would he? Anyone who tries to stand with the foot at 40 degrees, the hip at 30 degrees and then lean over and tweak your knee inward to line up the shin, knee and button or belt buckle will really grok just how unbelievable that posture is.

Thanks, I saw it mentioned in the HSCA report but did not find any data. The field of view would help to pin down the camera position and distance from Oswald.

There are some specs available on this camera but I can't find how many degrees the field of view is. I have also heard photogrammetry was done on the backyard photos but can't find any of it. Anyone have any info on this?

John, I am not saying that the examples were it bloomed in February and did not bloom by March 21st can tell you what happened March of 63. what it does tell you is that the possibilities of when it bloomed can range from February to after March 21st. So the bushes on 3/31/63 could have been bare or bloomed. That makes it impossible to determine the date by the lack of blooming. If there is a record of when it bloomed in 63' maybe this could be resolved. I could not find records other than daily cloud and rainfall, temp etc. If it bloomed in February or March of 63' you would have an interesting case. But Jack White claiming it does not bloom by March is factually wrong. The Google Earth map showed it blooming in February. "Shadows change their directions simply because they fall on different surfaces. Give me a break!" When a shadow falls on a surface that is slanted it changes the appearance of shadow angles. Anyone can test this very easily. Take a piece of paper and a pen. stand below a light and hold the pen and paper so you see the shadow of the pen on the paper. Now change the angle of the paper a bit. You will see the shadow angle change as you change the angle of the surface it falls on. the photo shows a radical example with angle 90s degrees apart. Here is a photography site that shows this principle. http://www.betterphotography.in/features/shadow-theatre/6222/attachment/bob-smith_us/ Since you believe people are spouting dis information you should test this for yourself with the paper and pen experiment I mentioned above. EDIT: Also the telephone line shadow on the post demonstrates how it changes it's 'apparent angle from West face to it's South face. But if you suspect it or any of the images I posted are shopped you can just look at your own image in your member photo. The shadow of your face that lands below your right shoulder changes angles as it travels across the fold in your shirt.

214 W. Neeley st. is still on google maps. But google Earth shows that in 2001 it bloomed in February and in 2002 it had not bloomed by March. 23! So on 3/31/1963 it could have been blooming or bare. It can't tell us anything about the time of year.

Previously I could not reconcile the azimuth with Oswald's shadow length unless the BYP's were taken in mid April. After reconsidering the width of the stairs and angle of Oswald's shadow, I think it comes close enough to a shadow cast from a 47 degree elevation of the Sun. The Azimuth and elevation would match 345pm on March 31st.

I never considered Walker. Maybe he did shoot Walker as a covert agent of the intelligence agencys and it was part of the set up as the JFK patsy.

The only days that don't have a matching counterpart are on the solstice. June 21st is the longest day and so has no counter day. But the day before solstice and the day after are the same. Likewise two days before solstice is the same as 2 days after. so almost all days have a counterpart ranging from two days part to 6 months apart.

I have looked at all the shadows now and was able to reproduce the angles seen. The answer is not short. You have to take into account several factors for each shadow. But as far as when it was taken the shadows greatly limit the time frame. In March the elevation which determines shadow length is a mismatch to the azimuth by a large degree. Now this is based on some calculations that are estimated. But when I consider the error factor it still does not explain the azimuth/elevation mismatch. As an example of shadows that look weird but are correct take the one just right of this guy's head. It is a shadow created by the landing. To test it I used a piece of paper to recreate the landing, the wall behind it, and the azimuth and elevation. The angle of the shadow matched using the azimuth of 240 which matches what I see in the post. To double check I used the end of the treads on the staircase which sit at the same orientation as the south facing part of the landing. The difference is that shadow falls on a South facing surface not a West facing one like the wall behind the landing. This makes for a good test because if I change the wall to face South it should then reproduce the shadow of the tread. It reproduced the tread shadow perfectly which confirms that the shadow by his head is correct for a shadow cast by the southern end of the landing at the top of the stairs. If you want to take all the shadows one at a time we could do that, but if you don't agree with my analysis it won't matter. Do you have any objections to my explanation of the shadow by his head?

Tony thanks for the input. The results are the same for the CBS and BYP. Although I think the CBS image may be propaganda to address Oswald's awkward lean and I don't trust either image. On the 31st the azimuth would match the pole shadow at 4:10pm. But the elevation at that time is 43 deg which would make Oswlad's shadow(If he is 5'9") 74" long, but the distance from the post to the fence is only 51". It is not till mid April that both azimuth and shadow length would match.

Regarding my last sentence. In your photo it converges toward the Sun but I was talking about when the Sun is at your back and the shadows converge away from the Sun.

Joseph the image of the box is mine and may be misleading . I took that photo from a position way to the left of Marina's relative to the Sun. That is mainly why the nose shadow is so much greater than the BYP. Notice the box shadow leans about 20 degrees more than BYP. Also I took it from maybe 10 inches of the ground so the angle to the shadow is far less than Marina's camera height. That lower perspective adds another 10 degrees to the body shadow. The comparison of the two Oswalds has some dissimilarities to consider. In the BYP Oswald is leaning 7 degrees left (His head sits just outside his stance, it lines up vertically to the left of his right shoe. The other Oswalds head sits inside his stance). The 7 degree lean, when you add the distortion of perspective, accounts for about 17 degrees of the shadow. also Marina held the top view camera at chest level. If the other photo was taken at eye level then that photo will show less shadow angle. I have not tested to see just how much less but it is most likely about 5 degrees. another factor is that the BYP Oswald is facing a couple degrees to his left(Towards the Sun) and that takes a couple degrees of nose shadow away. But that is also true in the other Oswald photo and there he is facing about 5 degrees away from the camera and the Sun which adds 5 degrees to the nose shadow. The other Oswald image has a nose angle of about 40 degrees. Take away 17 for the lack of lean, 5 for the head turned to the right, and 5 for a higher camera position and you have 13 degrees. REGARDING THE BYP NOSE SHADOW In the BYP Oswald is facing about 10 degrees away from the Sun and should have 10 degrees angle under his nose. (the angle is determined more by where he is facing relative to the Sun than the elevation of the Sun. You could imagine if he was facing directly towards the Sun the shadow would fall directly below his nose. If he turned 90 degree away from the Sun his nose shadow would match the elevation). But Oswald also has his head turned away from the camera and back towards the Sun by 2 degrees. He also is tilting his head by about 4 degrees and both those cancel out some of the shadow angle, 6 degrees total. The last bit is that because Oswald is looking to his left his nose no longer sits in the center of his face. If you draw a line from the tip of his nose to the tip of the shadow you will find the nose shadow is leaning by about 4 degrees. This fully accounts for the ten degrees of nose shadow that we should see in the BYP.

I think the format we use here prevents us from reaching mutual conclusions. If we asked one question at a time it would be more like real time conversations. "Do you think a or b?". "I think b with this caveat.". If the conversation proceeded along these lines we would resolve some issues rather than go round and round . Josephs statement "the angle at which the stair post is casting a shading CONFLICTS with the shadow of the man in the image...." has been taken to mean that the post shadow and body shadows diverge back towards the Sun and that that is impossible. If this is what Joseph's intended meaning is, then Ray's response regarding vanishing point causing shadows to converge behind Oswald and diverge toward the Sun is relative to this point at hand. His response was not an unwarranted diversion from the main topic, it was a slight diversion addressing Joseph's sub topic. I believe we all agree that shadows converging is a matter of perspective. the question is do shadows appear to converge away from the Sun or phrased differently do shadows appear to diverge towards the Sun? This super simple question is something that we should not debate in multiple thread. So lets make a real effort to resolve this issue. It takes almost no effort to walk outside and place two objects on the ground and see if shadows APPEAR to converge away from the Sun(diverge towards the Sun). Or if you have a chain link fence just look at two poles. It is amazing that we could argue over this in many threads when we could resolve it and MOVE ON. For anyone that believes that the post and body shadows diverging towards the Sun is wrong, Please please go outside and check this claim before weighing in on it. Please don't respond with "I don't need to cause I no better". If you go outside and find you are correct then I will get a major education that is crucial to my understanding of perspective. If I am wrong I will welcome the new knowledge, but when I go outside I find shadows do diverge back to the Sun.

One thing I can't resolve is the date the BYP's were taken. On 3/31 the azimuth from 3pm to 4pm went from 194 to 220 and the elevation 61 to 55. Looking at the post shadow it sure looks like the azimuth was about 240. At 5pm the azimuth was around 240 but the elevation was so low that Oswald's shadow would be about 6 feet long. It isn't until about April 15th at 430pm that you get a 240 azimuth with an elevation of 51 which matches the BYP's. The HSCA determined Marina's line of sight was 70 degrees East of North. An azimuth of 220 translates to 40 degrees East of North. This means from Marina's pov Oswald was standing 30 degrees away from the post. For that to be true she would have to be standing only 4 feet from Oswald which seems impossible, it should be more like 13 feet. (Azimuth can be determined by using North or South as the starting point and you can go clockwise or counterclockwise. for Neeley st. they use a clockwise movement starting with North as the starting point of zero azimuth). To test how many degrees away from the post Oswald is, take Marina's distance to Oswald as 4 feet(Radius) x 2 = 8 feet(diameter) x 3.14 = a 25 foot circle based on a 4 foot camera distance. 360 degrees divided by a 25 foot circle results is 14.4 degrees per foot. Oswald is about 2 feet from the post so he would be about 29 degrees away from the post. If that were possible then Marina's pov at 70 degrees East of North(Per the HSCA) would be 29 degrees away from the post and everything would be fine. But Marina can't be just 4 feet away from Oswald so Oswald can't be 29 degrees away from the azimuth. This means the azimuth of 220 on 3/31 at 330pm can't be right or Marina's line of sight as 70 degrees East of North can't be right. If Marina is 13 from Oswald then he would be about 9 degrees away from the post. If this is the case and the HSCA is correct about Marina's 70 degree line of sight to Oswald then the post's shadow represents an azimuth of about 240 or 60 degrees East of North. Oswald would be at 70 East of North, 9 or 10 degrees away from the post shadow. The post shadow points almost directly to the post under the landing at the top of the stairs( The post under the NorthWest corner of the landing). You could determine the azimuth if you know the distance from the post to the NorthWest landing post and the width between them. I measure the stairway to be from 30 to 36 inches wide. To get the distance from post to post I use the steps which I measure to be 10.28 inches each( 12 foot long stairway divided by 14 steps = 10.28 inches per step) the landing post is 51 inches East of Oswald's post. If you draw a box with the proportions based on 36' width and 51 inch length and draw a line from the lower left corner to the upper right corner it shows the angle of the post shadow which aligns with an azimuth of around 235 to 240. to make the azimuth come out to 220 the stairs would have to be 6 feet wide or 42 inches long from post to post. The width obviously is no more than 3 feet and the length can't be 42 inches or each step would be only 8 inches long, shorter than the average foot. So I can't see the photos being done before April 15th. I wish some person in Dallas could take a picture of the yard this March 31st. That would solve a lot.

I just looked at Neeley St with the Google Earth time slider. Some years it was green by February and other years there were no leaves in march. September was very green in one image. The green image in February of 2001 was before climate change started causing things to bloom early. Someone is going to have to look up the record for 1963 and see exactly when the bloom started that year. Crap I have been dropping the 'r' from February for years!

The front and side of the post are each 3 1/4 but because each are viewed from an angle neither show the full 3 1/4. Together they add up to 4 1/4 inches. Since the post shadow falls almost directly behind the post you can assume the camera was viewing the post from the same angle as the azimuth which was around 223. So you can look at a 4x4 from the same angle and measure what you see. Another thing I don't get is Brown said he cut himself from the image but the cutout is not his silhouette but Oswald's in 133c. The rest of it is still a mystery to me.

Is it the opinion of the group that the ghost image was a shot of Det Brown in which he was removed? I ask because I was a bit confused about the point of some posts. The cutout is that of Oswald in 133c. I assume they placed a cutout of his shape in one of the cop photos that shows the backyard with no one in the frame. So it would not matter where they place the cutout in terms of it's vertical or horizontal alignments. I noticed when they used the 133c image for the cutout they rotated it so Oswald is standing straight. But then the angled lines on each side match how much Oswald was leaning in 133c. Anyone have a theory on what why they rotated Oswald and put in two lines to match the original lean of 133c?

I was looking at the uncropped Dallas cop photos and realized the camera was only 24 inches off the ground. The stair on the far lower left is the 2nd stair at around 22 inches and reveals the camera height. That causes some weird things like the roof line in 133 goes straight across but in the ghost image it drops down on the left side. Also knowing the camera height tells us that the shrub in front of the post is about 30 inches high, for whatever that is worth. Marina's camera was about 48 inches high so in 133 the shrub will appear about 10 inches lower. It will also appear more in front of the door in the background than the post because Marina was farther right. Still the only way I can see the shrub being missing is Marina's camera was much closer than the cop photos and is looking over the top of the shrub. although that does not add up when you consider her 4 foot camera height and the downward angle of the field of view. It is an interesting problem. Near the bottom of the post in 133a I see a shadow that matches the angle of the branch I think should be at that position after the higher camera position is taken into account.. But I can't see the rest of it so I don't know what to think. I found a unit of measure within the post next to Oswald. The width we see is about 4.5 inches width. A normal 4x4 is 3.25 inches but in the photo we see the from from an angle and we can see part of the side too. I duplicated the angle and found 4.25 visible. The post looks like 2 2x4's put together because there is a seam running the length of it. Regarding the cop image riser shadows they made no attempt to match the time of year or day. the sun was directly South for most of the photos but a flash or other lighting was used for some of the shots which also demonstrate that they took the images from only 24 inches off the ground. I wonder why, seriously not being sarcastic.

John, on the left(133a) does show a couple branches but barley visible and and low. The Dallas cop photo(3) is taken from a position farther left and farther back and a little lower(You can see that in the uncropped versions). So the bush sits higher and more in front of the post in the Dallas cop image. The ghost photo is even lower than the Dallas cop image evidenced by the roof line in the background being much lower than 133a or Dallas cop images. The Bush in the background does seem higher when compared to the roof line in the background but not when compared to the post height. The roof line in the background is much lower than in 133a or the Dallas cop photo. The lack of foliage in the bush and lack of shadows in the foreground grass make it likely they took the 67' photo in September and just never admitted it. It just would have caused more suspicion, and even if it was taken in September so what? I can't see any coverup being benefited by taking the shot in September.

I think the body shadow over the grass was impossible then. Maybe they could alter an existing photo with Oswald's face. The problem is, he is leaning too far in 133a yet the shadow corresponds. If they can't fake the shadow it has to be from a photo taken a 1/2 hour earlier and they leaned a cut and paste of the body, Maybe Roscoe, to match the shadow. But then the shadow would be about 7 inches shorter from the elevation change in that 1/2 hour. I gets tricky.

There is something interesting in the photo of the fence in the bottom right of Joseph's post. The ends of the fence have lines showing the angle but if you drew lines on the next two slats the angle decreases. If you used the two slats nearest the center slat the angle is almost zero. We know the Sun is too far away for the angles to change by that much.And we know each set of slats would point to a different elevation for the Sun. I think this demonstrates the relative nature of angles depending on your pov. If you go into google Earth and position yourself far above Dealey you will find that every single lamppost shadow is angled in the exact same direction. the shadows on the tracks above the triple are no different than lamppost shadows near Houson St. There is no convergence. This means seeing lines converge back to the Sun is always a matter of perspective. We all know that if you measure the azimuth of the Sun then walk 20 feet West you still measure the same angle. We know that when you drive down the street the Sun follows you. It maintains the same angle or azimuth relative to you. In any scenario all the positions(Like the post or Oswald) all have the Sun shinning from the same angle. This means that when we do an overhead diagram we have to have the Suns rays hitting everything from the same azimuth. We cannot have rays diverging from the Sun when doing a diagram from above. This subject of backyard shadows tends to get muddled as it goes forward. We never resolve anything. If we disagree on such a basic point as divergent or parallel rays from the Sun we will just go round and round. If we can agree on non divergent rays from the Sun we can move foreword. If not it we are stuck.

Thanks I had not seen a comp of the touch up before.

1. The shadow under the nose appears to land directly under the nose as if the Sun was directly above. But the tip of the nose is not centered because Oswald is looking to his left about 2 degrees. So if you draw a line from the tip of his nose to the tip of the shadow you will find a 4 degree angle. Furthermore his head is tilted 3 or 4 degree to the side(Towards the Sun) That eliminates 3 or 4 degrees of shadow angle. The elevation was about 50 degrees but what determines the shadow angle is less about elevation and more about whether you are facing towards the Sun or not. When you turn 90 degrees away from the Sun you will see all 50 degrees of elevation represented in a nose shadow. But if you turn 90 degrees to face the sun it will be directly above the nose and you will see zero shadow angle. It will fall directly below the nose if all else is equal(No head tilt). So Oswald was facing about 9 degrees away from the Sun and should show about 9 degrees shadow angle under the nose(The increase from zero to 50 degrees shadow as you turn away from the Sun is not proportional. It is about doubled for the first 20 degrees or so. Oswald facing 9 degrees away from the Sun create about 9 degrees of shadow. 4 degrees are visible from nose tip to shadow tip. 3 or 4 more degrees are neutralized because of his head tilt. that is 7 or 8 degrees accounted for and we should see 9, so there is only one degree missing. 2. Oswalds right arm is drawn back a bit and that creates more shadow on the biceps from the fold in his short sleeve. 3 and 4. The shadow of the telephone lines cross Oswalds lower body and cross his right hip near his holster. Also his hip is angled back by about 20 degrees which may cause more shadow on his right. 6. The rifle stock and part of the scope were modified by Life Mag because the image was not contrasted well. So we can't really know what was there originally. The telephone line shadows also cross the rifle in that area. 5. Looks like the telephone line shadow on the upper right leg. 5a. I find it hard to evaluate the arm brightness because the exposure, film stock and printing can all distort relationships of dark and light.

It is often asked how could the Dallas cops be aware of the pose shown if the photo did not surface till years later. Well I think it was Roscoes wife who found the photo. If that is true it explains the issue. Roscoe was around when the photos were taken so they could have easily had access to it and so known the pose at that time