Was LHO Truly "Innocent"?

[Jean Ceulemans]

3 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

That’s why I would like to see someone try to create fakes and see how successful they are. 

Faking in analog photography isn't really that hard.

Yes, it's technical and you need to have the know-how, but it is not hocus-pocus, and when you spent enough time doing it (getting the smallest of details right)  it's going to be very hard for someone to discover it.  Unless... he has some original negatives...

I a way (... I know it's not the same) you could compare it to learning how the use a fairly basic program like Photoshop, the basics take a couple of hours maximum.  If you want to take it to the next level, you spent more time.

In the late 1970's in my early teens I learned to develop "standard" analog pictures in a couple of hours (a couple of afternoons), including a few basic trics of the trade (like improving pictures that were under- of over- exposed).    Certain special stuff, timing issues, types of paper, spec's of certain films, etc that came all a little later.  Within a couple of months B/W analog photography held little secrets to me.

I don't really do it anymore, untill some time ago when I bought a Cuera like LHO's Russian camera and I just had to try it...

I have a friend who still is into the old stuff, prepped a film that we needed, and we had some fun experimenting with that old camera.   It did have some issues, but old camera's all have issues... If you know them (takes some time) you can get it right and fix them but I didn't spent enough time with it later on.

Back to the BYP's, I think if you look at the picture in Groden's  "The Killing of a President", p.168, bottom, you will see a "not-so-bad" fake.   

It's clearly based on one of the Oswald BYP's (see the details in the picture, the bush on the right, etc.

If he had spend some more time on some of the details it would have been a lot better and harder to judge (based on the picture printed in the book that is...).  Parts of the fence were simply duplicated, exposing repeating in small details, giving away it's a fake.   

Anyway, I only wanted to say: yes the BYP's could be fake, BUT you really need the original negatives to 100% proove that... UNLESS some clear errors were made in the faking (like in the Groden one).  Even to 100% proove you have a first gen print, you would need the original negative. 

BUT not all first gen prints are the same... you have the negative, and let's say you have some pics on paper X from store A,  later you go to another store and I'm sure the result will be a little different... even using the same original negative... as it depends on the settings of the machine, or how it's done when manually.  A short time of more or less exposing to the sensitive paper will shows differences in contrast etccc

I have been looking at a lot of BYP's and most of them are touched up in one way or another (and pictures in magazines, newspapers, books... are always adjusted/tuned to the spec's, printing capabilities, type of paper, ink, etcccccc).

I know they showed some BYP's to experts in the 1970's etc, but they were not told the pictures they had gotten were x gen prints, probably taken of a negative of a ... etc who knows...

If you want a "good" fake : make a "somewhat lesser quality" picture of a "very good fake work" and destroy all the rest...

So, IF the BYP's are fake, why did "they" leave the negatives lying around..., I simply don't get that part... it doesn't make sense... unless the negatives are created post... oops...

  

 

   

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Faking in analog photography isn't really that hard.

Yes, it's technical and you need to have the know-how, but it is not hocus-pocus, and when you spent enough time doing it (getting the smallest of details right)  it's going to be very hard for someone to discover it.  Unless... he has some original negatives...

I a way (... I know it's not the same) you could compare it to learning how the use a fairly basic program like Photoshop, the basics take a couple of hours maximum.  If you want to take it to the next level, you spent more time.

In the late 1970's in my early teens I learned to develop "standard" analog pictures in a couple of hours (a couple of afternoons), including a few basic trics of the trade (like improving pictures that were under- of over- exposed).    Certain special stuff, timing issues, types of paper, spec's of certain films, etc that came all a little later.  Within a couple of months B/W analog photography held little secrets to me.

I don't really do it anymore, untill some time ago when I bought a Cuera like LHO's Russian camera and I just had to try it...

I have a friend who still is into the old stuff, prepped a film that we needed, and we had some fun experimenting with that old camera.   It did have some issues, but old camera's all have issues... If you know them (takes some time) you can get it right and fix them but I didn't spent enough time with it later on.

Back to the BYP's, I think if you look at the picture in Groden's  "The Killing of a President", p.168, bottom, you will see a "not-so-bad" fake.   

It's clearly based on one of the Oswald BYP's (see the details in the picture, the bush on the right, etc.

If he had spend some more time on some of the details it would have been a lot better and harder to judge (based on the picture printed in the book that is...).  Parts of the fence were simply duplicated, exposing repeating in small details, giving away it's a fake.   

Anyway, I only wanted to say: yes the BYP's could be fake, BUT you really need the original negatives to 100% proove that... UNLESS some clear errors were made in the faking (like in the Groden one).  Even to 100% proove you have a first gen print, you would need the original negative. 

BUT not all first gen prints are the same... you have the negative, and let's say you have some pics on paper X from store A,  later you go to another store and I'm sure the result will be a little different... even using the same original negative... as it depends on the settings of the machine, or how it's done when manually.  A short time of more or less exposing to the sensitive paper will shows differences in contrast etccc

I have been looking at a lot of BYP's and most of them are touched up in one way or another (and pictures in magazines, newspapers, books... are always adjusted/tuned to the spec's, printing capabilities, type of paper, ink, etcccccc).

I know they showed some BYP's to experts in the 1970's etc, but they were not told the pictures they had gotten were x gen prints, probably taken of a negative of a ... etc who knows...

If you want a "good" fake : make a "somewhat lesser quality" picture of a "very good fake work" and destroy all the rest...

So, IF the BYP's are fake, why did "they" leave the negatives lying around..., I simply don't get that part... it doesn't make sense... unless the negatives are created post... oops...

  

 

   

 

I've suspect the BYP were staged, that is real, as part of the LHO biography build.

[Jean Ceulemans]

43 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I've suspect the BYP were staged, that is real, as part of the LHO biography build.

That´s indeed an option, and it is actually confirmed by what Rachel Oswald once said, that someone had requested to take those pictures. That statement (in an interview) went largely unnoticed I think. It´s in one of the interviews I recently all posted.  

Rachel in 1995 : "For example, right before the shooting someone asked my mother to take a picture of Lee holding a rifle"

Where would she get that? She could have heard it from Marina, don´t know.

Edited 11 hours ago by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

That´s indeed an option, and it actually confirms what one of Oswald´s daughters once said, that someone had requested to take those pictures. That statement (in an interview) went largely unnoticed I think. It´s in one of the interviews I recently all posted. She could have heard it from Marina, don´t know. 

Some people have observed that a true and knowledgable leftie would not have had the two newspapers that LHO held in one of the photos, as the papers were from opposing camps of Marxism. 

That makes me weary just reading about it; I can imagine the strained arguments and antipathy taking place, c. early 1960s, in some forlorn academic lounge with ugly couches in New Haven. 

But anyway, maybe that is what happened. LHO was staging the photos. 

 

[Sean Coleman]

Not sure you can stage this pose Ben….

image reversed for dramatic effect

[Benjamin Cole]

34 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Not sure you can stage this pose Ben….

image reversed for dramatic effect

The Leaning Tower of Pizza is not faked! 

(Yes, I know it is "Pisa," but everyone says "pizza.")

Try holding a heavy rifle in one arm. You might lean against the weight of the rifle. 

The photo sure looks faked. Like a three-dollar bill. 

But then, evidently much of the photo is "true," such as shadows.

Those are the two newspapers in LHO's hand, read by lefties of the day, of the true but conflicting interpretations of Marxism. Some say that is a give-away LHO was not a true leftie. Maybe he was just spoofing.