Chris Bristow

6 hours ago, David Andrews said:

And - with all respect to your work - it appears that you have your left foot too far forward and the heel too far apart from your right shoe, plus your left leg too straight, in order to maintain balance.  Which makes this BYP look even stranger.

Was the camera or film stock used in the BYP capable of catching Oswald in mid-movement without blurring?  Of course, we'll never know what camera was used.

David, that confused me for a second. I am not in the photos so you must mean Mr Cappel who posed for that picture many years ago. That image is used by Lne'rs to show that the lean can be reproduced. Obviously it does not even come close. 
 I do think there would be some blur. The end of the Carcano would show some blur if he was moving  but I don't see any blur there.
 One thing about the left foot position I have found is once you lean right your weight comes of the left foot. At that point it does not make much  difference in your posture except for a slight counter weight effect the farther you hold it out. The wiki page on the Imperial reflex camera says the slow shutter speed causes that camera to blur easily. They said you needed to hold the camera very steady. Interesting

 Not to rag on the skeptics but when that Cappel photo is offered as proof that he could lean that far, they always offer up the fact that 'They are the same height too'. But that is complete BS. They did arrange the photo to match the position of his head with the post above, but to do that they had to raise the camera about 4 inches. Easy to confirm this by comparing the roofline of the house next-door to where it intersects with the stairs. The comparison they  offer has an image of 133a next to the Cappel image but it  is rotated 4  to 4 1/2 degrees farther left than 133a. But even then Mr Cappel's lean does not match Oswald's. If the stance can be debunked legitimately why do they offer a photo that misrepresents height and has to be rotated 4 degrees from the comparison photo, and even then they can't match the stance.!

I find it impossible to duplicate Oswald's lean in 133a. There are two crucial elements of Oswald's posture that  must be matched to test his stance and that is the angle of his right foot and his hips.  I have seen Oswald's extreme angle achieved but the right foot and hips are usually swung way out, far past Oswald's. when you reproduce his foot and hip angles even if it's just a loose approximation, the stance become hugely problematic I will explain how I determined the hip and foot angles below.
      Whenever you take measurements  like these there will be some  ambiguity.  Each measurement has a tolerance and by the time you add up all the variables in a persons posture you have too much variability. To limit the ambiguity I have done two things.
      First I will give a very large tolerance to the hip angle measurement. I found the hip angle is well below 10 degrees,  but for the purposes of testing the stance you can increase the hip angle to 20 degrees. 
      Secondly, the only part of Oswald's stance that I test is from the waist down. Simply trying to match the  vertical alignment of his right knee, shin and waist is all you need to discover the problem with his posture. even if you try to lean your upper body to counter the lean(Which Oswald did not do) it will not allow you to reproduce his lean. 
 One odd side note is that Oswald is leaning all of his body equally like a mannequin leaned against a wall. You can draw a straight line from his adams apple right down through the crouch and and between his feet. The line traces the center of his body the whole way down.

 There is disagreement on which version of 133a is actually level. The fence is either leaning 2,3, or 4 degrees. To avoid any ambiguities I will use the 4 degree tilt which has Oswald leaning the least. However I think it is actually around 2 1/2 degrees based on the door frame visible on the house in the background of the Getty image below.  There wasn't much in that yard that was  vertical. The bannister leaned right. The post by Oswald leaned left. It makes so you can't trust much of anything. But that vertical door frame is, imo, a very good reference to find vertical.
 In the Getty image below I have rotated them to match. You can see that Mr Cappel on the right does not swing his leg way out but you can also see from the green lines that he is not leaning out over his stance like Oswald.  
   There only two things to verify before you can attempt to duplicate his stance, the foot and hips angle

THE ANGLE OF HIS SHOE
This first image was taken from directly above a shoe that is angled at about 38 degrees. The two images below are the same shoe at 38 degrees but the angles are now distorted to between 68 and 72 degrees.
The  images are at 68 degrees and 72 degrees and were taken from 10 and 12 feet away. 
     The distorted angle of his right foot in 133a is about 68 degrees so the actual angle of his foot was around 38 degrees.  The camera distance is an estimate so to be fair I will give an extra 12 degrees and say the actual angle of Oswald's shoe was no more than 50 degrees.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

FINDING THE HIP ANGLE
 
The images below shows a recreation of the telephone line shadows that fell on the ground behind Oswald and across his hips. The diagrams on the left are overheads of the corresponding image on the right. The only difference in the diagrams is that in the upper one Oswald is facing directly West, his hips are parallel with the shadow on the ground. Because he is standing parallel the shadow across his hips(simulated by the white box standing behind the protractor) is also parallel with the shadow on the ground.
 But Oswald was actually facing the camera, which according to the HSCA had a line of sight of 22 degrees North of East. The image on the bottom shows that rotating his hips to face the camera caused the shadow across his hips to take on an angle. There are a few basic and obvious facts we can draw from the shadow on Oswald's hips. First, we know Oswald's hips could not be anywhere near a 22 degree angle because the shadows would be parallel as In the top image. Second the amount of angle divergence between the ground and hip shadows is around 8 degrees and matches 133a so Oswald was facing much closer to the camera than directly West as in the top image. 
 I think the hip shadow shows his hips must have been at no more than 7 degrees of angle if that. But to test his stance you could go as far as 15 degrees or even 20 degrees and it will still prevent you from achieving Oswald's alignment of shin, knee and waist. 
 You can see the shin, knee, and waist alignment If you look at the green lines below. You will see the green line on the right runs vertically from Oswald's shin, through his knee and up to the waist  where it intersects about one inch left of Oswald's center line. That is about one inch left of where his belt buckle would be.

 To summarize, I have found that is you keep the right foot to 50 degrees and the hip to 20 degrees it becomes extremely difficult to maintain Oswald's lean, if not impossible. 
 The easiest way I found to approach the stance is as follows. First I leaned out far enough to align my shin and waist which leaves the knee out to the right of the alignment. Even before tucking the knee in to finish the alignment it was very painful and placed way too much strain on the right knee to be able to fully stand there without keeping one hand on the wall. 
 Someone here made a good point that Oswald may have been  in a transition from one stance to another at that moment. So it would just be a momentary strain. But in that posture you feel like you are just a couple millimeters away from an injury and it gives you an intuitive understanding that you can't afford to hop around in or out of that stance cause you are just to close to your limit. 
 finally when you try and tweak your knee into alignment you realize that even if you could maintain that posture for a few seconds why would you? It is really such a torturous stance that you are left with the nagging realization that it just makes no sense. I would advise anyone who attempts this stance to be careful because you could injure yourself. I found it necessary to put my hand against the wall for support.  
 

23 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Nice work Chris....

Key action word in there is "supposed"....  I just can't buy a single word these people say...

I for one would love to know how HE knew to use that pose....

And if you check again, the ghost with the red - the red is the shadow caused by the ghost cutout... it is not flush flat like the image to the left of it where there is not shadow...

Here's the original of the shadowed version of the ghost....  I think I got this from the Dallas Photo Archives.... and not the DPD inventory... but I'm not sure

Thanks, It is an interesting little anomaly.
    Does the shadow indicate that the silhouette of Oswald was a  cutout   placed on top of the Dallas Police photo? I thought this was supposed to be a cutout silhouette with white paper behind it? If the Dallas photo itself was cutout over white paper then the shadow would fall inside the silhouette wouldn't it?
       Let's say he first used a cutout silhouette of Oswald over the Dallas cop image and it was uneven and cast a shadow. Then he used the resulting image with the shadow mistake (Because he was just practicing) to cutout the 133c silhouette. That would result in a cutout photo with a shadow outside the white silhouette
 I guess you are right not to trust what they say. If I have the story right Dt. Brown tried to say he cut himself out of the photo but had to completely change the story because the cutout shape is Oswald in 133c. But isn't that also a Dallas Police photo of the Backyard? There would be no Oswald or Brown to cut out of it. That particular Dallas photo he used has to be one of those with no person in the picture because cutting out a 133c silhouette would not remove all of Dt Brown even if he had been in the photo. The only cutting out he did was Oswald in 133c and a silhouette into the Dallas cop photo. 
  Roscoe White snatched 133c at some point and kept it out of evidence. Maybe it was found separate from 133a and B and he pocketed it then. Maybe he took any records of it being found. somehow he kept it hidden. but that would not prevent him from influencing the 133c pose Dt Brown did. Maybe he decided to snatch the photo after they replicated the pose. That sounds pretty stupid of him but my point is he could be responsible for Brown's 133c pose.
 

Here is a strange thing. The cutout image has a dark line over the left forearm that matches the leather sling that drapes over Oswald's forearm. The problem is, it is in the white cutout part that is  supposed to be a white sheet of paper that laid behind the cutout portion. The shadow image lays in the same spot over the forearm. Even slight variations  match.
Maybe some copies of the cutout have remnants of overlaid comparisons? If this is part of the original image then the mystery is what process would leave traces of the cutout image?

There is also a difference  between the two part of the newspaper that matches 133c. The fold on the left is distinct but it is barley visible without some further enhancement.

Dealey would be interesting but 214 Neeley St on the 31st of March with a camera and tape measure,, that would;d be enlightening. 

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

I don't know what to make of the lean, but if the BYPs feature, for example, Oswald's face pasted over another man's body, the problematic body posture is still there. 

It should be considered that the photo is a moment in time "on the order of 1/50 - 1/25 of a second", so it is not necessarily the case that the posing figure was holding a pose at that moment, and not shifting position in the lower body when the shutter was fired.

Shifting stance is a legit consideration. I would expect some blur especially at the end of the gun barrel which should reflect very slight movements. What I find in the stance is if I just duplicate the belt buckle over the shin I am so close to tipping over that I would have to put one hand on the wall to shift at all. But that is before I add my knee to the alignment. The knee will naturally fall  farther out and you have to tweak it inward to make it align. At that point it matches 133a perfectly. But I am well past the tipping point and my knee is under too much strain to use it to support my weight. But I am old so I will pester my nephew to try it. I think if you try it, even being loose about the parameters, you will  end up scratching your head too.

14 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

I can't say much more. Volume Six of the HSCA Report has the BYP report. Item 457 speaks of the camera's "curvature of field". The data produced from the panel's work may exist somewhere, but not in the body of the report. 

As you've probably discovered, there are any number of technical camera sites, which lay out specs of individual makes and models. The ones I've seen don't have the info you seek. Perhaps there's a good discussion group on these topics and you can find someone who would know there. But the Imperial Reflex was such a cheap camera that it is hard to imagine too much interest would ever be applied to it.

This is interesting: "The shutter is fairly slow, probably on the order of 1/50-1/25 of a second, though oiling it may raise the speed slightly. The slow shutter speed means that it is important to use slow film for daylight photography and to always hold the camera very steadily to avoid camera shake. The optimal technique for firing the shutter is to depress the trigger slowly until it is about to fire, then to fire it with the shortest, gentlest motion possible."  Marina claimed the BYP were the first photos she had ever personally taken, looking into an upside-down image, and operating a tricky shutter. It is surprising then that the photos aren't blurry... (I don't believe Marina took the photos).

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. 

9 hours ago, John Butler said:

There are 6 sets of shadows in the CBS March 31, 1967 reproduction photo.  They are marked by arrows and numbers.  Shadows are made from a light source projecting light onto an opague object.  This casts a shadow of the same shape as the object in the direction the light source is shining.  In this single moment captured by this photo there should be one light source which is the sun in the sky since the scene is outside.

The red arrows and numbers show different groups of related shadows moving in the same direction.

Shadow group 1:  These are the step shadows and they move in direction from picture left to the right.  This is a morning shadow of about 9:00 to 10:00.  They appear to be moving in a related direction.

 1: HOW COULD A MORNING SUN PLACE A SHDOW ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE POST OR THE FENCE? THE SUN HAS TO BE IN THE WEST. IT HAS TO BE PAST THE AZIMUTH OF 180 WHICH IS DIRECTLY SOUTH.  
   THE UPWARD ANGLE OF THE STAIRS CREATES THE ANGLE YOU SEE ON THE FENCE AND POST. AS THE STAIRS GO HIGHER THE SHADOW LENGTH TO THE POST OR FENCE GETS LONGER AND SINCE THE SHADOW IS MOVING AT AN ANGLE THE LONGER SHADOW FALLS FARTHER LEFT IN THE PHOTO. 

Shadow group 2:  The shadows here are strange for step shadows.  They move in an opposite  direction from the other shadows.  They move down and to the right.  There is probably a natural explanation for the direction.  If natural the would be about the same time I would guess.

2: THESE SHADOWS ARE CAST BY A HORIZONTAL OBJECT ON AN SOUTH FACING SURFACE. THEY APPEAR TO MOVE DOWN AND RIGHT IN THE 2D IMAGE BUT IN THE 3D REALITY THEY MOVED  EASTWARD.  

Shadow group 3:  These shadows are from the nose and neck of the figure.  And, there is a similar shadow under the eave of the structure in the back ground.  These are from a sun directly overhead at about noon or 12:00.  The shadow moves in a downward direction.

3: IF YOU DRAW A LINE FROM THE TIP OF HIS NOSE TO THE TIP OF THE SHADOW YOU GET 5 DEGREES OF ANGLE. BECAUSE HE IS LOOKING TO HIS LEFT THE TIP OF HIS NOSE IS NOT CENTERED AND THAT IS WHY IT MEASURES 5 DEGREES OF ANGLE. IT SHOULD BE AROUND 10 JUDGING FROM HIS DISTANCE FROM THE POST BUT BECAUSE HE IS LOOKING TO HIS LEFT(TOWARDS THE SUN) IT CANCELS OUT ABOUT 4 DEGREES(2 MORE THAN THE BYP BECAUSE HE IS LOOKING FURTHER LEFT WHICH YOU CAN MEASURE BY COMPARING THE DISTANCE OF EACH EAR TO THE BRIDGE OF THE NOSE.
THE SHADOWS UNDER THE FENCE  AND THE HOUSE IN THE BACKGROUND BOTH HAVE HORIZONTAL SHADOWS UNDER THEM . SIMILAR TO THE SOUTH FACING SHADOWS UNDER THE STAIR TREADS THE BOTTOM IS HORIZONTAL AND THE SIDES SHOW THE ANGLE. BUT THE SIDES OF THE HOUSE SHADOWS IN THE BACKGROUND  ARE HIDDEN BY THE POST AND THE GUY'S HEAD. THE EDGE OF THE FENCE SHADOW LOOKS LIKE IT FALLS ON THAT ENDPIECE WHICH APPEARS NOT TO BE FLUSH WITH THE FENCE. I THINK THAT RUINS THAT MEASUREMENT. THE HORIZONTAL SHADOWS DO NOT REFLECT THE TIME OF DAY, IT IS THE VERTICAL SHADOWS ON THE SIDES THAT DO THAT.

 

Shadow group 4:  Is one shadow that moves from left to right in a flatter angle than the step shadows.  This shadow appears to be from a power line and somewhat problematic to assign a numerical value and time.

4:  THE TELEPHONE LINES ARE LEVEL WHILE THE STAIRS RISE AT AROUND AROUND 38 DEGREES. USING AN OLD PHOTO I PLACE THE TELEPHONE LINES AT 18 FEET HIGH AND 20 FEET AWAY. OR VISA VERSA , CAN'T REMEMBER.

Shadow group 5:  Are shadows that move from the right side of the photo towards the left.  The shadows are the shadow of the human figure, the shadow of the shrub, and a shadow on the fence.  The sun is high in the sky and moved from the noon position to about 1:00-2:00.

5: WHAT I HAVE FOUND WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC TESTING IS THE ANGLE OF THE CAMERA TO THE OBJECT CHANGES THE APPEARANCE OF ANGLE GREATLY. THE FARTHR AWAY FROM THE CAMERA THE MORE SHALLOW THE ANGLE TO THE OBJECT. THIS MAKES ANGLED  SHADOWS INCREASE WITH DISTANCE. AN OBLECT  13 FEET AWAY WILL BE DISTOTED BY ALMOST A FACTOR OF THREE. AT 9 FEET IT ONLY DISTORTS BY A FACTOR OF ABOUT TWO TIMES. I.E. AN ANGLE OF 30 WILL APPEAR TO BE 60 DEGREES!!. SO THE SHADOWS AT DIFFERENT DISTANCES FROM THE CAMERA WILL NOT APPEAR TO BE THE SAME EVEN WHEN THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. 

Shadow group 6:  It is apparent these shadows are moving from right to left.  They are supposed to be post shadows outside of the scene.  They are at about 4:00-5:00.  They are so out of tune with the rest of the picture they are extremely noticeable.

6: ALL I SEE THERE IS THE TELEPHONE LINE SHADOWS. 

There are 6 different shadows going in 6 different directions.  5 directions if you consider 1?-4? as the same direction.  This gives us 6 different light sources or 6 suns in the sky at the same time.  Or, 5 directions if 1? – 4? are the same.  Which one would you pick to determine the time of the day much less the season?

5 or 6 light sources, the sun, tells one that this photo is a composite photo made at different times of the day.  The season is still determined by the condition of the shrub and the vegetation in the photo.

Jack White said he was a life-long resident of Dallas.  In March there is no foliage or blooming.  That occurs in the middle of April.

The Warren Commission determined the date of the BYPs to be March 31, 1963.  They did this based on Marina Oswald and scientific measures.  One can imagine an early bloom at about March 31 to April 15 to account for the foliage on the shrub in the BYPs. 

One can not do that for the shrub in the CBS 1967 reproduction.  There is no foliage on the shrub indicating a time of pre-April in the spring.

Regardless of this or that argument the different times in the photo indicate a composite photo.  This would be a must to produce if you wanted to get close in appearance to the original BYPs.  The original BYPs are composites also. 

ALL THE DIFFERENT DIRECTION ARE EXPLAINED BY THE FACT THAT SOME SHADOWS FALL ON A SOUTH FACING SURFACE, OTHERS ON A WEST FACING SURFACE. STILL OTHERS FALL ON A HORIZONTAL SURFACE LIKE THE GROUND AND OTHERS ON A VERTICAL SURFACE. SOME THAT FALL ON A  WEST FACING VERTICAL SURFACE  LIKE THE POST OR HIS PHILTRUM, OTHERS ON A SOUTH FACING VERTICAL SURFACE. OTHERS APPEAR TO BE MOVING LEFT TO RIGHT IN THE 2D IMAGE BUT ARE ACTUALLY MOVING WEST TO EAST. WHEN YOU CONSIDER THESE VARIABLES ALL THE SHADOWS MAKE SENSE.

I THINK WE HAVE TO DISCOUNT JACK WHITES OBSERVATION ABOUT THE BLOOMING SEASON IN TEXAS. I MENTIONED BEFORE THAT IF YOU GO INTO GOOGLE EARTH AND USE THE HISTORY DATE/TIME SLIDER YOU WILL FIND YEARS WHEN  214 NEELY ST WAS FULL BLOOMED IN FEBRUARY AND OTHER YEARS WHEN IT WAS BARON IN MARCH. THAT IS FACTUAL INFO THAT PROVES WE CANNOT RELY ON THE LOOK OF THE PHOTO TO DETERMINE THE DATE. 

15 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Right, so in effect, if the CBS photo was actually taken around April 15th, the same photo could be replicated around August 28th. 

According to your calculations, if the CBS photo crew turned up at Neely St on the 31st March, they would not have been able to shadow match the BYP. But if they turned up in mid April, they could.

But at some point, they wanted the date the photos were taken to be before the April 10th Walker shooting.

The question is, when did they decide to incorporate the Walker incident into the script? If it was after the Neely BYPs had already been taken, the shadows make sense in regards to August 28th & April 15th

 

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.

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Chris, for the CBS photo to be authentic, lets look at mid April. Now that would be around 3 weeks past the equinox.

Would there be a date, around the next equinox cycle, that would allow a reproduction of the CBS photo to be taken that would closely match the shadows caused by the azimuth and elevation back in mid April?

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.

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

It is insane trying to make sense out of the shadows in the CBS reproduction.  You can't tell what time of the day it is or what season by using shadows.  The only clue to the season is the bare shrub and the documentation that says the photo was made on March 31, 1967.  It can't be done with the directions of shadows as portrayed below by the red arrows.  I darkened the contrast slightly so the shadows were more pronounced.

 

Can you give me a short, concise explanation for this cluster f**k of shadows?  Please excuse Clint Eastwood for introducing the term.

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?

52 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Chris, if you apply your determinations, as above, to the 1967 CBS photo, can you be confident it shows no anomalies, and the photo was taken on the 31st March 1967? And if so, what time of day?

 

 

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. 

19 minutes ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Thank you Chris. It's exactly what Michael and I have been saying. but they seem to be unable to carry out a simple experiment. When they do, I hope they come back and describe their experience. However, I believe you meant converge rather than diverge  in your last sentence, as is shown in my post photo. 

 

https://postimg.cc/rzdmZ9y1][/url

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.

7 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Exactly Michael... and that is exactly what I am going after... exaggerated of course but still the same point....  the angle at which the stair post is casting a shading CONFLICTS with the shadow of the man in the image....

I found these images of the Oswald(s)... the shadow faling behind each man is virtually the same yet the shadow on the nose and the left side of his face is the real problem here...

 

 

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!

1 hour ago, John Butler said:

Chris,

I'm glad you are tackling this.  It is way past my pay grade.  The steps perspective is strange.  Why would a camera be at the height of 24 inches?  Was someone sitting or squatting to take the picture and why?

A 2 x 4 is 1 1/2 by 3 1/2.  I first thought the double board post was a 2 x 6.  2 x 4 is a better description since 2 x 4s are used in other posts.  A 4 x 4 is 3 1/2 by 3 1/2.  A 4 x 6 is 3 1/2 by 5 1/4.  None of the standard measures fit your last example 4 1/4.  Not much help here. 

There are wacky things in these photos.  I hope you can figure them out.

"Is it the opinion of the group that the ghost image was a shot of Det Brown  in which he was removed?"

I've got an opinion, more of a speculation, and I don't know how helpful it will be.  My believe is that Roscoe White was involved in the first set of BYPs.  He joined the Dallas police force in Sep. 1963.  He was assigned to the crime lab / identification bureau.  He would have access to their equipment and staff for help.  Mrs. Roscoe White later Dees had a copy of 133 C.  There was only one way for her to obtain that photo, Roscoe.  Or, maybe she could have obtained it from Jack Ruby.  Wasn't she a stripper for Jack Ruby at one time before marrying Roscoe.

The first set of BYPs may not be that related to the second set of BYPs (backyard scene, Det. Brown, and the Ghost scene).  The first set which some of the materials may still have been in the crime lab inspired the second set. 

If you believe Det. Brown or not this info might be helpful.  I don't believe this story.  I think the second set was made for use with the HSCA years after the first set was made.  They would be useful for the official story.  This is a bit far fetched depending on the image of Det. Brown and his age at the time.

It's a wild idea but one I have been speculating about based on this:

Just Don’t Cut Me Out

taken from
BOBBY BROWN AND “OSWALD’S GHOST(S)”
by John J. Johnson [Nov. 1997]

The “cutout” had been made by Dallas police officer Bobby Brown, who claims it was done at the direction of the Secret Service several days after the assassination. Brown offers an innocent explanation, claiming that the Secret Service wanted a reenactment of the backyard photos to demonstrate where an how they had been made. He says that Forrest Sorrels of the Dallas Secret Service had called Captain Fritz and requested that someone from the Crime Lab go to the Neely residence.

Brown and Fritz, together with some Dallas detectives and a couple of Secret Service agents, went to the house and made the photos.

Brown was selected to pose because he was the youngest of the men present He was given a rifle that Fritz had in his car and the Secret Service instructed him which hand should hold the rifle, how he should stand, how he was to hold the newspapers, etc. Brown claims that he later cut his figure from the photo because he did not want to be identified with it.

I asked Bobby very specifically what would possess him to cut out his silhouette from the reenacted photographs. He was adamant to me that he only wanted to take himself out of the photograph since it was the background that was the subject, and not himself. He said that he did this entirely on his own, and that no one told him to do so. He said he cut his image out of a developed photograph and placed a white piece of paper behind it and re-photographed the reenactment.

Brown later offered another version of how the ghost photo was made, this time with Oswald being cut out of the picture. He says that, after he posed for the reenactment, the FBI brought the 133-C photo to him at the Dallas crime lab and Brown cut Oswald out of the picture. He then photographed the 133-C print against a white background to make the matte.

What is interesting about the photo in question is that the pose selected by the Secret Service for Brown does not match the two photos the Warren Commission was aware of (known as 133-A and 133-B). The photo of Oswald in the new pose (HSCA F180, now known as 133-C) was discovered after the silhouette was found in the Dallas Police archives and twelve years after the first two backyard photos were made public

This matted photograph, one of two photos showing the same “ghost” against two slightly different backgrounds, which was discovered by Mary La Fontaine in the Dallas Police files, combines a silhouette of Lee Harvey Oswald taken from 133-C with the backyard at 214 Neely Street as it appeared on Friday, November 29. Although the Secret Service and Dallas Police obviously had a copy of 133-C at the time of the reenactment, the photo disappeared from 1963 to 1975, only to turn up when produced by none other than the widow of Dallas Police Officer Roscoe White.

I find any of this hard to believe much of the above.  The photo, 133 C, turns up in 1975 with Roscoe's wife.  Mary La Fontaine has two ghost photos with different backgrounds.  When did these turn up?  1963? 1975?  Or, sometime in between?

If so then the second set of BYPs were made sometime between Nov. 1963 and 1975.  Question:  Is the picture of Det. Brown right for 1963 or later.  That will answer the question when the second set of BYPs were made.  Anyone have photo evidence of Brown in 1963 or later?

 

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?

4 hours ago, John Butler said:

These two figures have different heights measured from the 2X4 section on the step support behind to the top of the figures heads.  Once you measure that you move beyond by pay grade.  You will next need to measure the distance from the figures to the post in question.  Just by eyesight the ghost figure seems closer to the 2 2 x 6s step support than the Oswald figure.  And, the ghost figure seems shorter.

The shadows in the two series of BYPs do not match.  You can easily see that with the step risers having different shadows.  This may indicate a different time of the year, or different season, and definitely a different time of the day.

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.