Backyard photos

[Richard Booth]

WC exhibits 150 through 164 are Lee Harvey Oswald's clothing. Looking at these exhibits, I don't see the clothing that appears in the backyard photos. I suppose Oswald could have destroyed those clothes. On the other hand, if the photos are fake and it's Oswald's head pasted on someone else's body, in such a case the clothing being worn in the pictures is not Oswald's clothing.

When I look at the backyard photos, they look fake to me. Of course this is merely a subjective observation, and I'm mostly talking about the LIFE magazine cover: the head looks too large, not proportionally correct.  

I was surprised that the HSCA panel concluded that the backyard photos were real. 

We have Marina Oswald testifying that she took the photographs. However there seem to be major problems with her testimony at both WC and HSCA and she did not appear to know how to operate the Imperial Reflex camera. That camera was unusual in that you hold it down below your face, and turn your head down and look into/at a viewfinder.

The chain of evidence on that camera is also unusual. I believe that I read the camera was not included with evidence initially recovered from Oswald's home or Ruth Paine's home, but was actually given to the authorities by Robert Oswald. Why did he have the camera, and why didn't Marina understand how to use the camera if she supposedly took the photos?

What is your best argument for why these photos are fake? 

If they are real, why do you suppose Oswald posed for these photographs?

What do you think about the fact that an additional backyard photo was located in 1976, sourced from DPD officer Roscoe White's ex-wife?

What about the unusual fact that the HSCA obtained an additional enlarged backyard photo sourced from George DeMohrenschildt's possessions in 1977?

What do you think about the fact that DPD police officer Richard Stovall provided the HSCA with a previously never seen version of the backyard photo?

Isn't it strange that so many versions of this photo appeared and came from places other than where Oswald lived?  

There is a great deal of information about these photos on John Armstrong's website here:

http://www.harveyandlee.net/Ryder/Ryder.html

One interesting detail from Armstrong's page here is where he says that Captain Fritz asked Oswald about these photographs and wrote about them in a report before they had been retrieved from Paine's home.

JA's article here says that the photos were obtained by DPD on 11/23, several hours after obtaining their search warrant, but only after they had been mentioned by Fritz in a report. Doesn't that indicate the photos were planted and "found" at Paine's home? 

 

[Rob Clark]

This is James Wagenvoord in the middle of myself and Doug in 2014...an editor at Life magazine in 1963. We met again last year at the CAPA conference,  he was kind enough to eat dinner at our table, and is currently writing an autobiography. Lots of very cool stories, but one thing he has said is that Life magazine DID in fact retouch many aspects of the backyard photo, including the rifle to make it clearer and appear of a better quality. He said this was done with just about every photo used on a cover. Whether or not a scope was added, I can't speak to, and he doesn't know that either. He also had "accidentally taken home" a copy of Life's copy of the original Zapruder film in 1964. He had it in his possession until his home was burglarized in the mid 70's. He had been talking to Geraldo's people about it, thinks his phone had been tapped. No signs of forced entry, and the Z film was the only thing missing...professional job by someone. I know you mentioned the clothes were not in the inventory...how bout those fancy leather Wing-Tips?

[Richard Booth]

Thanks for sharing this. Much of what you said here rings true--yes, covers are retouched and that's common. My ex-wife is a graphic designer and though processes in the 2000s were different than in 1963 of course there are some common factors and retouching was something she always did: It was making things "ready for print."  Most interesting to me about LIFE and their cover is the level of detail present on the cover, yet the supposed source was a tiny photograph: no negative found. I think that Armstrong's suggestion that LIFE was given or otherwise obtained and kept that negative is probably correct given just how detailed and good that cover looks, and if the source was really a tiny photograph I would expect the level of detail on the LIFE cover to not be there no matter how much retouching was done. 

Has Wagenvoord said anything about the negative of that photo, or whether or not he knows or even suspects LIFE had a negative of it?

Re: his phone being tapped

I believe it probably is accurate that his phone was tapped if he was in any way connected to LIFE's handling of the JFK materials, to me that goes without saying. He's talking on the phone about giving a copy of the Z-Film to someone? Then his home is burglarized and it disappears? Ain't no coincidence. That is what our dear friend Penn Jones would sarcastically say "well, maybe it's just happenstance" -- referring to the WC's euphemism for something that is obviously conspiratorial that is written off as coincidence.

By the way, I have listened to Quick Hits and your other Drop D production podcast with you and Doug. I enjoy both a great deal. Excellent stuff. I also listen to Black Op Radio and love that show. 

There are people who appear on both shows whose research positions are disputed by one another, and I try to avoid the internecine warfare that is common among these disagreeing groups because I like to focus on the positive and look at the good work that is being done rather than waste time on arguing things or establishing my interests in this subject as some kind of ideology. Some do that, and it's unfortunate because it creates divisions. 

[David Andrews]

That head looks particularly bad in this photo version, really looking like a cut-and-paste job against the fence and foliage.

Is the figure off-kilter because the body is in three parts, spliced again below those baggy trouser knees?  Do the trousers (which seem to have an absurdly low crotch here) appear the same from photo to photo?

For researchers: there is one or more excellent BYP threads in the Forum back pages, with posts from Jack White, David Josephs, more.

Edited September 4, 2020 by David Andrews

[Chris Bristow]

I looked at the shadows in 133a and eventually concluded that they all seemed to have rational explanations. But I always felt the lean was hard to understand. If you try to vertically align the right shin, knee and about one inch from the button on the pants, and limit your right foot to a 40 degree angle and your hips to around 35 degrees, it becomes very painful and very awkward. It really is a mystery why he would stand right at the tipping point. Why the hell would he assume such a painful stance?
 Later I found that the shadow of the telephone lines crosses his hips at an angle 9 degrees off of the same shadow on the ground. This shadow angle tells you where his hips were facing and it turns out Oswald had his hips turned almost directly at the camera. I estimate his hips could be angled no more than 8 degrees from the camera. If his hips were even at 11 degrees we would see a 4 degree difference between the shadow on his hips vs the ground.
 I find putting the hips at 30 degrees to be almost impossible and at 20 degrees I am already falling over.
Here is a link to the essay I did last year. It details the entire issue.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25645-duplicating-oswalds-stance-in-133a/

In the image below the graphics on the left represent overhead views of the image to their right. The only difference between the top and bottom set is the top one shows Oswald facing West and the bottom set shows Oswald with his hips turned directly toward the camera. The shadow on the laptop represents the shadow on the ground and the shadow on the cardboard box represents the shadow across Oswald's hips. The elevation of the Sun and the azimuth relative to Oswald and Marina have been duplicated

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by Chris Bristow

[Richard Booth]

4 hours ago, David Andrews said:

That head looks particularly bad in this photo version, really looking like a cut-and-paste job against the fence and foliage.

Is the figure off-kilter because the body is in three parts, spliced again below those baggy trouser knees?  Do the trousers (which seem to have an absurdly low crotch here) appear the same from photo to photo?

For researchers: there is one or more excellent BYP threads in the Forum back pages, with posts from Jack White, David Josephs, more.

David,

Interested in looking at those threads. What do you mean when you say "Forum back pages" -- is it on this same forum "JFK Assassination Debate" and just near the far end b/c it's an older post?

I agree that the photo on LIFE magazine looks particularly bad.  When I look at that magazine cover today, it looks like a fake picture. Of course, the magazine cover also differs greatly from CE-133A -- far more detail, better contrast and grey color detail, you can see the scope on the rifle clearly for example. 

What Rob mentioned about the shoes is an interesting question: I have not examined all of the WC volumes to see if they had introduced as evidence Oswald's shoes and whether or not these wingtips were among Oswald's possessions. Would be interesting to know that bit but I don't have the 26 volumes to be able to check that. 

[Richard Booth]

CE-145

These appear to be the same shoes in the photograph. This strongly suggests it is Oswald in the picture. If someone were standing there in his place, what are the odds they would wear the same pair of shoes?  The other scenarios that come about to allow for that start to become hard to believe: someone, somehow, found out what kind of shoes Oswald had and they wore the same type of shoes for the photo? That is unlikely to me.  The other possibility that someone would suggest is that Roscoe White's shoes (or whomever they belonged to) were inserted into evidence and passed off as Oswald's shoes. No matter how you slice it occam's razor suggests these are Oswald's shoes. 

However, I have some suspicions about some pieces of evidence. How that Imperial Reflex camera got into inventory is very suspicious for example. So are Oswald's tax returns for a couple of years: Armstrong's work on the tax returns is very strong.  I understand there is considerable debate over that. 

The brightness and contrast have been adjusted in order to see the top of the front part of the shoes better. 

Original:

Edited September 4, 2020 by Richard Booth

[Richard Booth]

Found a very good thread here.

Tony Krome makes some absolutely fantastic observations in this thread. 

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Richard Booth

[Ray Mitcham]

6 hours ago, Chris Bristow said:

I looked at the shadows in 133a and eventually concluded that they all seemed to have rational explanations. But I always felt the lean was hard to understand. If you try to vertically align the right shin, knee and about one inch from the button on the pants, and limit your right foot to a 40 degree angle and your hips to around 35 degrees, it becomes very painful and very awkward. It really is a mystery why he would stand right at the tipping point. Why the hell would he assume such a painful stance?
 Later I found that the shadow of the telephone lines crosses his hips at an angle 9 degrees off of the same shadow on the ground. This shadow angle tells you where his hips were facing and it turns out Oswald had his hips turned almost directly at the camera. I estimate his hips could be angled no more than 8 degrees from the camera. If his hips were even at 11 degrees we would see a 4 degree difference between the shadow on his hips vs the ground.
 I find putting the hips at 30 degrees to be almost impossible and at 20 degrees I am already falling over.
Here is a link to the essay I did last year. It details the entire issue.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25645-duplicating-oswalds-stance-in-133a/

In the image below the graphics on the left represent overhead views of the image to their right. The only difference between the top and bottom set is the top one shows Oswald facing West and the bottom set shows Oswald with his hips turned directly toward the camera. The shadow on the laptop represents the shadow on the ground and the shadow on the cardboard box represents the shadow across Oswald's hips. The elevation of the Sun and the azimuth relative to Oswald and Marina have been duplicated

Chris, did you ever work out why the telegraph wire line shadows, on the stair post, moved so much , in the three subsequent photos?

[David Andrews]

5 hours ago, Richard Booth said:

David,

Interested in looking at those threads. What do you mean when you say "Forum back pages" -- is it on this same forum "JFK Assassination Debate" and just near the far end b/c it's an older post?

 

Yeah, I mean EdForum threads on the BYP, perhaps going back as far as 2006, when I first joined.  And there have been more BYP threads over the following years.

Look at Oswald's left hip in that photo.  Slimmed down by scissors?

[Chris Bristow]

15 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Chris, did you ever work out why the telegraph wire line shadows, on the stair post, moved so much , in the three subsequent photos?

Ray, that shadow is the longest one in the photo. It starts in the Southwest corner of the lot at about 18 feet from Oswald and 20 feet in the air. The full shadow length was about 26 ft.
26x2 gives the diameter x 3.41 gives a 163 ft circumference for a circle with a 26 ft radius. divide 163 by 360 degrees and you get .45 ft(5.4 inches) of shadow movement or per degree for a 26 ft shadow length.
Using the width of the post's West face at 3.5 " as a yardstick, the shadow moves about 7 inches. That is about 1 1/4 degrees of movement.
    Around 4:30pm on 3/31 in Dallas the Sun moved about 8/10th of a degree in 5 minutes. It would have taken the shadow about 7 or 8 minutes to move those 7 inches. 
     I put the time of day around 4:30pm because the azimuth had to be between 230 and 235 for the shadow behind the post to lead to the post on the Northwest corner of the platform at the 2nd floor. The elevation at that time was 48 degrees.

EDIT: I forgot something. The measure of 3.5 inches for the post is incorrect. It would be right if Marina's view was right in front of the post but being off to the side the 3.5 inch measurement shrinks. rough guess is I should shave about 30% off that so the time between 133c and 133a is closer to 5 minute or a little less.

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Chris Bristow

[Richard Booth]

On 9/3/2020 at 8:32 PM, Chris Bristow said:

I looked at the shadows in 133a and eventually concluded that they all seemed to have rational explanations. But I always felt the lean was hard to understand. If you try to vertically align the right shin, knee and about one inch from the button on the pants, and limit your right foot to a 40 degree angle and your hips to around 35 degrees, it becomes very painful and very awkward. It really is a mystery why he would stand right at the tipping point. Why the hell would he assume such a painful stance?
 Later I found that the shadow of the telephone lines crosses his hips at an angle 9 degrees off of the same shadow on the ground. This shadow angle tells you where his hips were facing and it turns out Oswald had his hips turned almost directly at the camera. I estimate his hips could be angled no more than 8 degrees from the camera. If his hips were even at 11 degrees we would see a 4 degree difference between the shadow on his hips vs the ground.
 I find putting the hips at 30 degrees to be almost impossible and at 20 degrees I am already falling over.
Here is a link to the essay I did last year. It details the entire issue.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25645-duplicating-oswalds-stance-in-133a/

In the image below the graphics on the left represent overhead views of the image to their right. The only difference between the top and bottom set is the top one shows Oswald facing West and the bottom set shows Oswald with his hips turned directly toward the camera. The shadow on the laptop represents the shadow on the ground and the shadow on the cardboard box represents the shadow across Oswald's hips. The elevation of the Sun and the azimuth relative to Oswald and Marina have been duplicated

Hi Chris,

It looks to me like you have done some very detailed analysis of the photographs. 

What conclusions have you made, even if speculative?

[Chris Bristow]

3 hours ago, Richard Booth said:

Hi Chris,

It looks to me like you have done some very detailed analysis of the photographs. 

What conclusions have you made, even if speculative?

The biggest shadow issue seems to be the nose shadow which would suggest the Sun is at high noon. But a shadow will also fall directly below the nose when you are facing in the direction of the Sun, toward the azimuth. 
 The azimuth was approx 235. That means Oswald was facing about 13 degrees away from the Sun. If Oswald was facing 90 degrees away from the Sun the shadow angle on his nose would match the Sun's elevation which was about 49 degrees. Turn 90 degrees and face  the Sun and the angle under the nose shrinks to zero. So a 90 change of direction would show a 49 degree change in the nose shadow from 49 to zero. Also the change as you go from zero to 90 degrees is not an even consistent change. It ends up close to about .8 degrees shadow change per degree of head rotation. So 13 degrees x .8 =10.4 degrees of shadow angle under Oswald's nose is the most we should find. But there are a couple more factors.
 Oswald's head is looking about 2 degrees to his left so although the shadow is centered on the philtrum the tip of his nose is not. Drawing a line from the tip of his nose to the tip of the shadow reveals 4 degrees of shadow angle visible.       Secondly you can achieve the same zero angle alignment by tilting your head toward the Sun on the vertical axis as by rotating your head on a horizontal plane. So if I tilt my head to 49 degrees to match the Sun's elevation the sun's shadow angle under the nose goes to zero. Oswald has his head tilted 4 degrees and that accounts for(Cancels out) 4 more degrees of shadow angle. Finally because his head is looking 2 degrees left(Towards the Sun) we can subtract 2 degrees from the 10.4 degrees which leaves 8.4 degrees to account for. 4 degrees are measurable under his nose and 4 more cancelled out by the head tilt accounts for the 8.4 degrees of shadow.
 Another weird shadow is the one with the steep angle just below and behind the 2nd floor landing. It is caused by the South side of that landing. Or at least when I duplicated the azimuth and elevation relative to the faux landing I made from paper it duplicated that shadow's angle and location relative to the landing.
Oswald's extra large head was explained by the WC? or HSCA? as being due to magnification that occurs as you tilt the camera plane down which moves the head image upward to a higher more distorted location. This does occur but in the test they moved a dummy head from center to almost the top of the frame. That is more than double the Backyard images. The magnification should also distort the face, stretching it and narrowing it at the bottom. So I find those tests questionable.
I find Jack Whites idea that the same backgrounds were used and keystoned to make them appear slightly different is wrong. The place were the roof in the background meets the top of the post next to Oswald is different in each image. you can compress, stretch and distort the position of objects but you cannot cause the place where the roof meets the post to change. The roof and post sharing the same location in the image would cause both to distort and move together. All the other objects near there would also have to be hugely distorted to create the change of the roof to the post that we see.
I have heard the use of stereoscopic viewers verifies that the Backyard photos are real. That method can be used to test the background but not Oswald as he was in a different posture in each photo. Maybe I am missing something there, I don't know.
 There are a a lot of smaller issues like the cut off fingers, the ring and wristwatch, that I don't have an opinion on other than maybe shadows make those objects visible in one photo and not the next.
The leaning is the only thing that really baffles me. I believe I have found two errors in the Dartmouth computor simulation of Oswald's stance. They claimed to prove his stance as stable to within a 99.8 % probability. But the 1st error I found drops it to about 83% probability and the second error takes it down to around a 55% likelihood. Here is the Essay on the Dartmouth study.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26039-dartmouth-and-the-study-of-oswalds-lean-in-133a/

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Chris Bristow

[Richard Booth]

3 minutes ago, Chris Bristow said:

The biggest shadow issue seems to be the nose shadow which would suggest the Sun is at high noon. But a shadow will also fall directly below the nose when you are facing in the direction of the Sun, toward the azimuth. 
 The azimuth was approx 235. That means Oswald was facing about 13 degrees away from the Sun. If Oswald was facing 90 degrees away from the Sun the shadow angle on his nose would match the Sun's elevation which was about 49 degrees. Turn 90 degrees and face  the Sun and the angle under the nose shrinks to zero. So a 90 change of direction would show a 49 degree change in the nose shadow from 49 to zero. Also the change as you go from zero to 90 degrees is not an even consistent change. It ends up close to about .8 degrees shadow change per degree of head rotation. So 13 degrees x .8 =10.4 degrees of shadow angle under Oswald's nose.
 Oswald's head is looking about 2 degrees to his left so although the shadow is centered on the philtrum the tip of his nose is not. Drawing a line from the tip of his nose to the tip of the shadow reveals 4 degrees of shadow angle visible.       Secondly you can achieve the same zero angle alignment by tilting your head toward the Sun on the vertical axis as by rotating your head on a horizontal plane. So if I tilt my head to 49 degrees to match the Sun's elevation the sun's shadow angle under the nose goes to zero. Oswald has his head tilted 4 degrees and that accounts for(Cancels out) 4 more degrees of shadow angle. Finally because his head is looking 2 degrees left(Towards the Sun) we can subtract 2 degrees from the 10.4 degrees which leaves 8.4 degrees to account for. 4 degrees are measurable under his nose and 4 more cancelled out by the head tilt accounts for the shadow under Oswald's nose.
 Another weird shadow is the one with the steep angle just below and behind the 2nd floor landing. It is caused by the South side of that landing. Or at least when I duplicated the azimuth and elevation relative to the landing the faux landing I made from paper duplicated that shadow's angle and location relative to the landing.
Oswald's extra large head was explained by the WC? or HSCA? as being due to magnification that occurs as you tilt the camera plane down which moves the head image upward to a higher more distorted location. This does occur but in the test they moved a dummy head from center to almost the top of the frame. That is more than double the Backyard images. The magnification also distorts the face, stretching it and narrowing it at the bottom. So I find those tests inconclusive.
I find Jack Whites idea that the same backgrounds were used and keystoned to make them appear slightly different is wrong. The place were the roof in the background meets the top of the post next to Oswald is different in each image. you can compress, stretch and distort the position of objects but you cannot cause the place where the roof meets the post to change. The roof and post sharing the same location in the image would both distort and move together. All the other objects near there would also have to be hugely distorted to create the change of the roof to the post.
I have heard the use of stereoscopic viewers verifies that the Backyard photos are real. That method can be used to test the background but not Oswald as he was in a ddifferent posture in each photo. Maybe I am missing something there, I don't know.
 There are a a lot of smaller issues like the cut off fingers, the ring and wristwatch, that I don't have an opinion on other than maybe shadows make those objects visible in one photo and not the next.
The leaning is the only thing that really baffles me. I believe I have found two errors in the Dartmouth computor simulation of Oswald's stance. They claimed to prove his stance as stable to within a 99.8 % probability. But the 1st error I found drops it to about 83% probability and the second error takes it down to around a 55% likelihood. Here is the Essay on the Dartmouth study.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26039-dartmouth-and-the-study-of-oswalds-lean-in-133a/

 

There are some simpler things that point towards the photos being real: the shoes. Those shoes look exactly like ones in the WC exhibits. In order for this to be a conspiracy we have to assume then the person posing in the photos would need to find out what kind shoes Oswald had and then purchased some of their own for the photo, which isn't impossible of course but it's highly improbable.

I still have questions, as there is so much that makes the whole thing stink: Marina's inconsistent testimony, the camera going from Robert Oswald to Ruth Paine's, the police having one of the photographs before they were "found" at the Paine's home, the negative being missing for C-133A. All of that, I think, makes questioning the photos reasonable. 

This is something that is hard to reach a conclusion about, I can see reasons for the photos being real and yet more reasons that indicate they're phony. 

Here's a question: assuming the photographs are real, what do we think Oswald was doing in posing for these? Why would he do that? Holding some newspapers to say "look I'm a Communist" and holding guns to say "look I'm violent" ?  It really doesn't make any damn sense in the context of "they're real", does it? The only way it makes sense is that they're phony and designed to incriminate.  

[Chris Bristow]

2 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

There are some simpler things that point towards the photos being real: the shoes. Those shoes look exactly like ones in the WC exhibits. In order for this to be a conspiracy we have to assume then the person posing in the photos would need to find out what kind shoes Oswald had and then purchased some of their own for the photo, which isn't impossible of course but it's highly improbable.

I still have questions, as there is so much that makes the whole thing stink: Marina's inconsistent testimony, the camera going from Robert Oswald to Ruth Paine's, the police having one of the photographs before they were "found" at the Paine's home, the negative being missing for C-133A. All of that, I think, makes questioning the photos reasonable. 

This is something that is hard to reach a conclusion about, I can see reasons for the photos being real and yet more reasons that indicate they're phony. 

Here's a question: assuming the photographs are real, what do we think Oswald was doing in posing for these? Why would he do that? Holding some newspapers to say "look I'm a Communist" and holding guns to say "look I'm violent" ?  It really doesn't make any damn sense in the context of "they're real", does it? The only way it makes sense is that they're phony and designed to incriminate.  

As to the photos being fake or real I don't have a hard opinion. I can't explain the stance at all and it is very suspicious to me. The shoes don't impress me much. Shoes like that were very common and I can't see anything about them that is unique. If 100 people tried to match all the parameters of his stance including his hips being forward and completely failed(And those people had a 30 inch inseam which is weird for a guy 5'9") I would be 99% convinced the stance is a photoshop.