Oswald Backyard Photo Fakery

[Bill Chapman]

The BY scene only proves that some guy was photographed enacting out some sort of machismo deal. That's it.

But CTers seem to want to infer that others think it proves that this guy was guy who shot the guy. Yo. Not on my watch. I need a lot more faked, planted and altered evidence to arrive at which guy was the guy who shot the guy.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

The BY scene only proves that some guy was photographed enacting out some sort of machismo deal. That's it.

But CTers seem to want to infer that others think it proves that this guy was guy who shot the guy. Yo. Not on my watch. I need a lot more faked, planted and altered evidence to arrive at which guy was the guy who shot the guy.

I think the photos indicate something more such as he wasn't pretending to hold radical views as cover work for US intelligence/CIA/FBI or whoever. After all those were Marxist anti-US publications he was holding up and not Time and Newsweek. This was more of a political pose than a machismo one. Marina said that after developing the photos that he gave one copy to her to save for their baby girl. Swell, what daughter wouldn't want a photo of their dad in that outfit? In any case, the significance of these photos re Oswald the person is another question for another day.

The question here is whether they're authentic or not. I think the evidence is overwhelming that they are.

A conclusion for me in this is that it shows the peculiar thinking of the conspiracy believers who seemingly think all of this is faked or staged to help frame Oswald. Right, they didn't manufacture one photo they created three. Why on Earth would you create three of these? Isn't one enough?

Too many conspiracy believers think the "conspirators"  had unlimited powers and resources and could just alter this and fake that and cover it all up for half a century. Sorry, that's not a world I think exists.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Two ("B" and "C") have less resolution than "A". Turns out only in "A" was the subject within the camera's set focus plane and, being closer in space to the film plane than "B" and "C", had more resolution and so presented more detail.

LNers never went on for decades about the CAP Picnic Photo being a fake. LNers respect evidence, while being able to spot CT-generated fake evidence -- like Doorman and Zapruder film alteration -- a mile away.

Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?, NOVA 1993 ( Link )

Jerry, but isn't the evidence pretty strong that these were, indeed, three separate photos? And, from that, the HSCA photographic experts said that the photos (A and B specifically) allowed them to employ "stereoscopic techniques" that enabled a three dimensional analysis. Any alterations (in either photo) could not escape detection because the alterations would appear to be either behind or in front of the three dimensional image.

I don't know whether this technique was available in 1963 (I would guess so but that's a guess) and thus the alleged fakers of these photos knew this. But it seems to me that the point is that anyone faking photos would not be able to predict whether future advances in photographic analysis - digital imaging for example - would expose their acts.

This is framing a person for the assassination of the president not for robbing a convenience store. The evidence used would be studied and studied and studied for generations. Any fakery, over that time, would emerge. And the framers/conspirators could not be confident that it wouldn't.

[Jack Trojan]

If Marina didn't take the backyard photos would it be a conspiracy? Did she lie about taking only 2 photos and burning 1 of them?

[Jerry Freeman]

If Marina didn't take the backyard photos would it be a conspiracy? Did she lie about taking only 2 photos and burning 1 of them?

Mr. McDONALD. Please tell us what happened? This was at the Neely Street address.
What happened on this occasion when Lee asked you to take those photographs?
Mrs. PORTER. Well, first of all, I refused to take picture because I did not know how to operate camera, and he told me, he insist that I will take it, and he said he will show me how, if I just push the button. So I took one picture, I think, and maybe he changed the pose, I don't recall. Maybe I took two pictures, but I was very annoyed by all the incidents.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/m_j_russ/hscamar1.htm
...................................

Mr. McDONALD. A tripod. In other words, was the camera attached to a stand?
Mrs. PORTER. No.
Mr. McDONALD. OK. You held it in your hands.
Mrs. PORTER. Yes.

DEPOSITIONS OF MARINA OSWALD PORTER
Staff Report of the
Select Committee on Assassinations
U.S. House of Representatives
Ninety-fifth Congress
Second Session
March 1979

Q. To your knowledge, did he own-will, did he own a camera?
A. I really don't remember.
Q. Did he own any kind of--
A. I remember in Russia, he took pictures. It was our camera or somebody's camera but I know he was taking pictures. I do believe it was our camera because he was carrying it with him.
Q. When you lived in Texas did he own a camera?
A. I don't recall but, according to some pictures we had he might have because he had some pictures that were taken recently, I mean during our living there. I do believe he probably had. But I would not recognize the camera. If somebody said was that yours, I would not claim it.
Q. Did he ever to your knowledge have any photography equipment, like developing or other photography equipment?
A. I don't remember.
Q. You don't remember anything?
A. I don't remember.
.................................................................................
Q. And after you took the picture what did you do after you took the first picture?
A. I went into the house and did things I had to attend to.
Q. How many pictures did you take?
A. I think I took two.
Q. When you took the first picture you held it up to your eye?
A. Yes; that is what I recall.
Q. What did you do next?
A. I believe he did something with it and told me to push it again.
Q. The first time you pushed it down to take the picture?
A. Yes.
Q. And the first time, what happened before you took the second picture?
A. He changed his pose.
Q. What I am getting at is, did you give the camera to him so he would move the film forward or did you do that?
A. He did that.
Q. So you took the picture and handed the camera to him?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he do?
A. He said, "Once again," and I did it again.
Q. So he have you back the camera?
A. For the second time; yes.

So after some needling and prompting...Marina "admitted"? that she took two pictures.
With a twin lens reflex...you do not hold the camera up to your eye!

Q. Did he put the rifle down on the ground between--
A. I don't remember. I was so annoyed with all this procedure so the sooner I could get through, the better, so I don't recollect.
Q. But you do remember taking the picture?
A. Yes; I am the one who took the picture and the weather was right.
Q. What did you say?
A. Somebody speculated the picture couldn't be taken; the weather was wrong.
Q. I am not interested in what people speculated.
A. There is nobody to blame for it but me.
Q. When you took the first picture and you gave him the camera, did you walk over to him and give him the camera or did he walk over to you?
A. I don't remember.
Q. Are these the only two pictures you ever took in your life at least up to that time?
A. Yes.

So you took the picture and handed the camera to him?
If that was true, then it would have been impossible to have framed a second picture just exactly like the first one was...yet it 'supposedly' happened.
If it was on a tripod..it would have been likely.
I am not interested in what people speculated.
I certainly am! Who was around to state that "the weather was wrong"?
This whole yarn is wrong !!!!! What about the third picture framed just exactly so?

 

[Louis Earl]

My concern with the BY photos has never been bottomed on what is depicted in the photos.  My concern is that they are "too perfect."  Really?  We have photos of the accused assassin holding the very rifle and the pistol in his hands in broad daylight in his easily identifiable back yard? 

[Michael Walton]

Louis, I'm not sure what your line of thought is. Yes, that was the whole point of the photos - to show an alleged assassin holding guns up and Marxist literature. If we're to believe Marina, she was in a rush and didn't really care about taking these photos as she had other things to "attend" to. As Jerry said, all photos look almost as if they were taken on a tripod, perfectly framed with very little difference in the overall layout.

It's important, too, to take Oswald at his word. He did say that the photos were fake, that he could show how they were fake, and he never got an opportunity to show this. His lawyer never got that chance too because he was refused representation even after his death. Even Jeffrey Epstein has been given the benefit of the doubt upon his own death.

[Louis Earl]

The existence of photos that show "LHO" standing in the easily confirmed location of a former residence, holding Commie literature and "the" rifle and "the" pistol is a little too pat for me.  That fact alone for me raises suspicion as to the legitimacy of the photos.

How about a nice 8mm home movie of him putting the rifle inside the paper bag for carrying it into the TSBD?  That would really help the prosecution's case.