# Real or fake?



## limr (Jul 22, 2018)

So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.

Anyone else thinks this is faked?


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## Gary A. (Jul 22, 2018)

Fake. The cat looks alive. No cat from 1870 is still alive.


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## Gary A. (Jul 22, 2018)

Honestly, I call fake.


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## tirediron (Jul 22, 2018)

I'm going with 'fake' as well.


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## Jeff15 (Jul 23, 2018)

Its a fake..........


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## Fujidave (Jul 23, 2018)

100% Fake


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## jcdeboever (Jul 23, 2018)

it's on the internet,  must be real


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## Dean_Gretsch (Jul 23, 2018)

Let's wait and see if Fox runs a story on it to see if it's real...


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## snowbear (Jul 23, 2018)

Oh, I think it's a real cat.

I found a post on Google+ from 2014, and the dates are 1880-1890.


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## OldManJim (Jul 23, 2018)

It must be real - cats stopped wearing amulets about 1885 and they haven't come back into fashion since. Besides, there's a small tear in the upper left border and that can only happen if it's real.

'Course, it could be a clever fake using a cat actor.


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## waday (Jul 23, 2018)

That picture, not sure. But...

https://io9.gizmodo.com/5900334/eve...-were-obsessed-with-ridiculous-photos-of-cats



> Probably the progenitor of shameless cat pictures was English photog Harry Pointer (1822-1889), who snapped approximately 200 photos of his perplexed albeit jovial "Brighton Cats." Pointer began his career shooting naturalistic photos of cats, but he realized in the 1870s that coaxing felines into ludicrous poses was an exercise in delicious absurdity.


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## limr (Jul 23, 2018)

OldManJim said:


> It must be real - cats stopped wearing amulets about 1885 and they haven't come back into fashion since. Besides, there's a small tear in the upper left border and that can only happen if it's real.
> 
> 'Course, it could be a clever fake using a cat actor.



What's up with what looks like bad cloning by the tail, then?  And also at the table edge on the other side of the cat? And a rip can be faked -check out all the filters that are supposed to emulate film that adds all kinds of defects onto a digital file.

I have found nothing on the net to suggest that it is faked, but there is also definitely something off about it that puts it into question.

It could also be an authentic photo that was digitally "restored" by a hack.


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## Jeff G (Jul 23, 2018)

Definitely been edited, not sure if the edits were at the time the photo was supposedly done or not, but it does look more like a bad Photoshop job. Then again I have seen real pictures that look wrong and would swear have been edited but know they weren't.


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## Jeff G (Jul 23, 2018)

If this were an episode of CSI they would zoom in on the eye, use their super special software and see the reflection of the photographer and see what kind of camera he was using.


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## Fujidave (Jul 23, 2018)

Jeff G said:


> If this were an episode of CSI they would zoom in on the eye, use their super special software and see the reflection of the photographer and see what kind of camera he was using.



Nikon D3200 was used to take the shot.


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## terri (Jul 23, 2018)

Looks fake.   It's the tail that is most suspect.   Someone sure spent a lot of time playing with it, though.


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## Fujidave (Jul 23, 2018)

In Topaz plug ins I could make a image look over a few hundred years old.


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## Fujidave (Jul 23, 2018)

This was taken in 1787..lol  Fuji were good then too.




St Nicholas Church by Dave, on Flickr


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## webestang64 (Jul 23, 2018)

Could be real BUT what about this daguerreotype was taken sometime between 1840 to 1860.


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## Designer (Jul 23, 2018)

limr said:


> Anyone else thinks this is faked?



There appear to be some artifacts in the image that may be the result of poor editing.


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## vintagesnaps (Jul 23, 2018)

I started do some searching (because it's mostly poured rain for days and I've been stuck in the house too much! lol).

I thought at first it seemed edited and not an actual vintage photo, but then again, I wondered... I found the cats in Brighton too, and other cat photos from that time period. So yep, cat photos were a thing even that early.

Found an NPR article (and apparently the one photographer posing cats only did it 3 months out of the year because it was so stressful trying to pose cats!). Found a picture in the Getty, and even Boston's Public Library has the same cat stereo photo on the Flickr page of its collection. I found a website that somebody's doing on Sussex photo history that has some Brighton cats mostly in baskets, next to cups and saucers, etc.
The Sad, Happy Life Of Harry Whittier Frees
Hoosac    Kitty Series John P. Soule
Harry Pointer

Found another couple of cat photos on Luminous Lint, one of which is a cat 'taking a picture' with a big wooden camera - of another cat!
Luminous-Lint

But what looks different to me with at least some of them is the quality of the photos - some I found look like photos taken with daguerreotype cameras, etc. that I think is the effect from using those big Petzval style lenses. I just don't see that in the example.

To me it almost looks like an actual vintage photo may have been scanned for a background and then a photo of a cat edited into it. I see what looks like grain you see thru a grain scope, so to me it seems like a background of a wet print possibly enlarged. But the edges of the cat seem soft and I don't see that grain in the cat that I see in the background, the texture looks too even across the cat.

Hard to know without any provenance or citation - who was the photographer? where is this photo located? Doesn't seem to show up anywhere such as a private collection or a museum.


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## limr (Jul 23, 2018)

vintagesnaps said:


> I started do some searching (because it's mostly poured rain for days and I've been stuck in the house too much! lol).
> 
> I thought at first it seemed edited and not an actual vintage photo, but then again, I wondered... I found the cats in Brighton too, and other cat photos from that time period. So yep, cat photos were a thing even that early.



I knew that cat photos were a thing for quite a while and had seen the same examples as you gave. So I don't doubt that it _could_ be a photo from the 1880s, but I also have a strong suspicion that this particular photo is at least partly faked.



> To me it almost looks like an actual vintage photo may have been scanned for a background and then a photo of a cat edited into it. I see what looks like grain you see thru a grain scope, so to me it seems like a background of a wet print possibly enlarged. But the edges of the cat seem soft and I don't see that grain in the cat that I see in the background, the texture looks too even across the cat.



It seems pretty clear that there has been some digital editing on the photo. It's just hard to tell if the photo is at least partly authentic, or if the entire thing is a joke on us.

And if it is, it seems to be working on a lot of people. Funny - one of the most frequent comments I've seen on Facebook, reddit, etc threads that I found when I was investigating was something along the lines of, "And they must have trained that cat well because back then, it took 20 minutes/an hour/hours/[insert inaccurate time here] to take a single picture!" I don't even bother commenting, but in my head, I'm all "NO, IT DIDN'T!"



> Hard to know without any provenance or citation - who was the photographer? where is this photo located? Doesn't seem to show up anywhere such as a private collection or a museum.



This to me also suggests shenanigans. I haven't seen it on any site other than some kind of social media, or some kind of blog that reports on social media. It just showed up and started making the rounds as "one of the oldest pictures of a cat." I find that dodgy and believe that somewhere, someone is laughing their ass off, saying "What a bunch of rubes!!'


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## snowbear (Jul 23, 2018)

limr said:


> This to me also suggests shenanigans. I haven't seen it on any site other than some kind of social media, or some kind of blog that reports on social media. It just showed up and started making the rounds as "one of the oldest pictures of a cat." I find that dodgy and believe that somewhere, someone is laughing their ass off, saying "What a bunch of rubes!!'


It seems it may be of Russian  origin, so it's likely "What a bunch of derevenshchina!!"


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## Derrel (Jul 23, 2018)

This does NOT look like a vintage photo to me...in a number of ways, from the tight composition, and the deep depth of field for such a frame-filling close-up, to the weird tail cloning or whatever, plus the weird, digital-appearing texture that appears to have been overlayed on the image,etc..etc.. This just looks like a modern hack job to me. I could be wrong, but...I've seen a LOT of old, early photos, and this lacks a number of things that photos from that era would typically have. The most significant issue that makes me ask WTF is going on here is that,when I look at the level of detail resolved, which goes down to the whiskers on the cat's face, I wonder why is there a horrible, artifact-mottled appearance to the image? That's just not right!


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## Tim Tucker 2 (Jul 24, 2018)

What must not be forgotten is that photos of the time were not processed with digital and so an understanding related to digital should not be applied here.

Images were routinely overpainted or modified, and not all were done well.

However there are a few oddities here that resemble modern processing rather than original and one must ask why...

In the 1870's celluloid film was not quite there, in fact stable emulsions were only just becoming available. So the approach to photography was a slow one where things were arranged with care, by a select and educated few who could afford rather than the masses. If this wasn't shot with a wet plate the habits of wet plate would still be there.

So why has the background been blurred? This is a modern technique and aesthetic, not one of the period. With the period a suitable backdrop would be there. And a many have noted the line from the background to foreground at the (added/modified) table edge has been quite horribly fudged. Again not consistent with the time. The edges of the table do not line up on the left and right, it extends to the cat's tail and also the apparent sharpness on the right hand edge is not consistent with the DOF. Further to that the edges of the cat's fur are blurred, again suggesting digital rather than period manipulation.

Subject separation by limited DOF was really the result of wider apertures to facilitate hand held photography. It was not really part of the *photographic landscape* and only became common and recognised with the faster celluloid roll films of the late 1890's and early 1900's. Lenses of 1870 were standard to long focal lengths, the first true wide angles were only just becoming available. Though apertures of f4 and f5.6 were available f7-f9 were far more common and coupled with the longer lenses of the time, and the camera/subject distance, did not produce *paper thin* DOF.

As indicated, if of the time a suitable backdrop would've been used, often painted and intended to give the impression of being real.

So why has the background been blurred out, it being so un-characteristic of the era?


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## zapadeeboom (Jul 31, 2018)

I think there is too little information to know if it's faked.  I would want to see the original print. When photoshop can edit every pixel in an image there is no way to know because the resolution isn't great enough for us to have enough information to know if it's fake.



limr said:


> So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.
> 
> Anyone else thinks this is faked?


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## Wildlife_Nut (Jul 31, 2018)

I don't really have anything to add other than to say some of you guys are funnier than all get out!


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## bulldurham (Jul 31, 2018)

It is definitely a fake. Give me a shot of your kitty and I can make it look like this one in about 20 seconds.


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## Ductor (Jul 31, 2018)

limr said:


> So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.
> 
> Anyone else thinks this is faked?


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## Ductor (Jul 31, 2018)

I suspect that it is faked. The ghosting around the edges is synonymous with Photoshop.


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## otherprof (Jul 31, 2018)

limr said:


> So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.
> 
> Anyone else thinks this is faked?


It may be one of my first cat photos, but my memory isn’ that good anymore.


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## t0bias (Jul 31, 2018)

I would also like to point out that the details within the shadows (especially around eyes, snout and the forward-facing fur) look too detailed for a emulsion plate photograph. You would normally expect these areas to be mostly black.


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## onsight (Jul 31, 2018)

limr said:


> So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.
> 
> Anyone else thinks this is faked?


Fake. My cat wants a play date.  He does not play with dead things.


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## RacePhoto (Jul 31, 2018)

Fake the grain is wrong and so is the fake color pretending to be sepia. That and probably every other reason that people listed, emulsions, contrast, DOF, all of them.In other words, not just a fake claim, but a poorly executed one.


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## weepete (Jul 31, 2018)

Yup fake, can't describe why but it just looks wrong comared to photos of the time.


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## Braineack (Jul 31, 2018)

Dean_Gretsch said:


> Let's wait and see if Fox runs a story on it to see if it's real...



That would be a pretty good litmus test wouldn't it...


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## acolvin (Jul 31, 2018)

limr said:


> So I saw this on Facebook - the claim is that it is one of the first photographs taken of a cat, dated 1870-80.
> 
> Anyone else thinks this is faked?


Given what was required by the subject in terms of holding still in order to avoid blurring, it's not likely this is real unless the cat (who are notorious for not holding still,) was highly trained. I've worked almost exclusively with analog cameras (my oldest is a Kodak Brownie # 3  c. 1908) You didn't take pictures with the older analog cameras  with subjects that moved because it created blurs owing to lack of  shutter speed control. I doubt it's real. Also, older images, especially 19th century "cabinet cards" which this image appears to be aping, typically came with a photographer's imprint on the bottom. About the only thing the faker got right was the sepia tone, but the fuzziness is a bit too off to be real. The real cabinet cards tended to be much sharper.  Plus the studio setting this would have occured in would have had too many distractions.  Also, I have done re-touch and restortation work on older  images and there are areas where this definitely look manipulated. Just MHO.


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## Tim Tucker 2 (Aug 1, 2018)

acolvin said:


> Given what was required by the subject in terms of holding still in order to avoid blurring, it's not likely this is real unless the cat (who are notorious for not holding still,) was highly trained. I've worked almost exclusively with analog cameras (my oldest is a Kodak Brownie # 3  c. 1908) You didn't take pictures with the older analog cameras  with subjects that moved because it created blurs owing to lack of  shutter speed control. I doubt it's real. Also, older images, especially 19th century "cabinet cards" which this image appears to be aping, typically came with a photographer's imprint on the bottom. About the only thing the faker got right was the sepia tone, but the fuzziness is a bit too off to be real. The real cabinet cards tended to be much sharper.  Plus the studio setting this would have occured in would have had too many distractions.  Also, I have done re-touch and restortation work on older  images and there are areas where this definitely look manipulated. Just MHO.



Indeed.  The first Box Brownies were not available until 1888, and they were the first to utilise the *new* celluloid films. But like you said they had very limited adjustments and it was just not possible to produce shallow dof images with them. Cares-de-Visite were pretty much studio based and to some extent dying out by the 1870's.

Relatively *fast* film became available from around the late 1870's with dry gelatine plates and with it so did *snapshot exposures*. Also around this time, when photography became more available to everybody, so did the idea that serious photographers were *artists*. Until this point there was a far greater opinion towards regarding photography as a documentary medium then there was towards an artistic one. Though some did explore this they were the minority.

Interestingly one of these photographers, Lady Clementine Hawarden did capture portraits that were far more of the *modern* aesthetic:

LAVENDER REVIEW: LESBIAN POETRY & ART: Lady Clementina Hawarden

These differ from Juliet Margaret Cameron's images who sought to evoke mood with the soft focus of her subjects.

Now though plain backgrounds were widely used in portraiture, (around the 1870's far more detailed ones started to become the fashion), they were not done by shallow dof. William Henry Jackson's portraits of the native Americans being typical:

William Henry Jackson (1843-1942)

Here is a self portrait that shows how they were done:

Print Collection - William Henry Jackson, 8/92

So though the ideas of plain backgrounds were entirely of the period, and also, though scorned by *serious* photographers, was the use of dof to soften the background.

But...

I'm willing to place money that you will not find one single example of this where it has been done AFTER the event. This way of reworking images is entirely from a digital age. The trouble is that when we look at or edit images we do so from our own point of understanding and experience and so do and see things against what *we* understand as being normal for our time.

In the 1870's backgrounds were altered BEFORE the exposure was made.

I vote fake.

_EDIT_: Interesting to note the blurring in Jackson's "Running Antelope" portrait. This is consistent with a stopped down Pretzel lens where the centre is sharper and the edges blurred, where in the cat portrait the edges of the cat are blurred. More consistent with digital processing. To hide a modern background??


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