# Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake



## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

*Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake*

In September 1908 a US journal published a photo (see 1 and 2) labeled as being made in November 1904:
- (1) small size http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppprs/00600/00616v.jpg (189.9 KB JPEG)
- (2) large size http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/ppprs/00600/00616u.tif (17.2 MB TIFF)
The negative survived and has been scanned, see 1 and 2.

Can somebody, on this forum, bring solid evidence the picture is authentic and was not made using two different authentic photos, one containing only the November landscape, without the flying machine, and the other containing the plane but flying in a different landscape that could be just the sky?
Could this photo be in fact a combination of two different pictures or there is strong evidence on the image (detectable by an expert) that excludes this possibility?


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## Braineack (Jun 25, 2014)

Why would they fake their 85th flight?


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

Why don't they check with historians?
and old "local" newspapers and things like that.


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## 480sparky (Jun 25, 2014)

In order to prove a fake, you'd need to examine the original negative.


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## sscarmack (Jun 25, 2014)

Its real.


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## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

> Why would they fake their 85th flight?



Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not. 

If I answer the question "Why would they fake their 85th flight?" I will influence you and an answer already suggested by me is the last thing I want.



> In order to prove a fake, you'd need to examine the original negative.


I have heard about this before but the negative is not accessible to ordinary people. What is available is that 17.2 MB TIFF.



> Why don't they check with ... old "local" newspapers ...


The picture I am talking about was not published before Sep. 1908. There is no newspaper or book or something else to show this photo during the interval November 1904 - August 1908.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> I have heard about this before but the negative is not accessible to ordinary people. What is available is that 17.2 MB TIFF.



The problem is ... a digital image ... or copy ... or an altered copy of the original ... is not an acceptable nor a good basis to conduct an experiment /investigation.

Any examiner would then have to contact everyone in the trail from the original photo to the existing presented "copy" of that photo.  Review all reasons why someone had the photo or access to it, to what they have have scanned it with .. any computer that it may have traversed to see if anyone may have altered it ... 

in short, You need the original to conduct any investigation.  
Without the original  .. it is all conjecture at that point or a very lengthy investigation.

Considering it's over 100 years ago ... that's a difficult investigation and even then, the original would have to be reviewed to confirm eh authenticity of the Copy that is presented as a "copy of the original".


If you ever watch tv like Pawn Stars.  They bring in an expert to review the specific item in question, not a copy of the specific item in question, as to it's authenticity.  Basically the same thing here. You need the original.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

Are you wondering if the Wright brothers themselves faked the photo? 

I'm not sure how they could have gotten that double exposure on a plate negative. The field, fine, but to get that angle on the airplane with nothing in the background? I'm not saying it's IMpossible but it also seems quite implausible. It was possible to do double exposures on what I believe were dry collodion plates, but again, I'm not sure if they would have gotten anything so clean and still get that angle and distance from the plane.

But as sparky said, how is anyone supposed to know without examining the plates?


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## Designer (Jun 25, 2014)

Your post makes this sound like a "whizzing" contest brewing.  

Besides just looking at the image, some of us might be curious as to the controversy and the parties involved. 

And how much is it worth to somebody.


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## greybeard (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> *Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake*
> 
> 
> Can somebody, on this forum, bring solid evidence the picture is authentic and was not made using two different authentic photos, one containing only the November landscape, without the flying machine, and the other containing the plane but flying in a different landscape that could be just the sky?
> Could this photo be in fact a combination of two different pictures or there is strong evidence on the image (detectable by an expert) that excludes this possibility?


So you think it might be a picture of the plane against the sky with the landscape superimposed?  It is possible I guess.  Do you have the original print to examine?


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## Braineack (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> > Why would they fake their 85th flight?
> 
> 
> 
> Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not.



an expert would look at everything, especially all the other pictures and documents/notebooks/diaries from their 105 Dayton Ohio test flights in 1904 between may-dec.

the picture alone doesn't suggest anything, nor does not being published prior to 1908 (they weren't flying between 1906-1907); stop looking at circumstantial evidence.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

Just WikiPedia talks about alot of controversy of the original flight/photos
Wright brothers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

seems the French wanted it disproven back in 1908 until the Wright brothers flew their plane in france as proof ...


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> Make abstraction of any circumstantial evidence and limit yourself to just analyzing the image from the point of view of an expert that has to decide if a photo is a fake or not.


I would simply say

You are presenting a so called "copy".
The "copy" is correct for what you are presenting ... a copy of an image which may or may not be the same and in-itself may have been altered at some point digitally.

But the "copy" is not, and never will be, the original which may or may not depict the same photo as the "so-called copy".

As to if the original was altered ... well ... you'd have to have experts examine the original.


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## TWright33 (Jun 25, 2014)

It's real.

And TWright33 approves this message.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

limr said:


> Are you wondering if the Wright brothers themselves faked the photo?
> 
> I'm not sure how they could have gotten that double exposure on a plate negative. The field, fine, but to get that angle on the airplane with nothing in the background? I'm not saying it's IMpossible but it also seems quite implausible. It was possible to do double exposures on what I believe were dry collodion plates, but again, I'm not sure if they would have gotten anything so clean and still get that angle and distance from the plane.
> 
> But as sparky said, how is anyone supposed to know without examining the plates?



Well you couldn't prove it beyond the shadow of any doubt without examining the plates, but since I work in fraud detection for a living the first question that pops into my mind woudl be, why?  What would they have had to gain by faking such a photograph?  Faking something like that back then would have been exceedingly difficult, time consuming and frankly expensive - it's not like today where you can just drag the thing into photoshop and work a little digital magic and blamo, you've got a somewhat belivable fake.

To do this with the technology of the time would be.. well, frankly remarkable.  Not impossible, but certianly not easy by any stretch of the imagination.  So the question becomes, why would anyone take the time and effort it would take to fake a photograph like this one - well the answer is without something to gain they wouldn't.  So who would gain by faking such a photograph?  Well not the Wright brothers - many of their flights were public, as well as many of their crashes.  If the notion here is that they supposedly "faked" this to win a government contract as I've heard some claim, well it just doesn't wash.  

The Wrights were required to submit a $2,500 deposit along with their proposal to the US Government - which isn't something you do if your trying to pull some sort of a scam.  If they didn't have a working flying machine then they would have lost that money and the contract.  So it makes no sense for them to have "faked" evidence that their machine worked if it really didn't, because they wouldn't have gained anything.  In fact they would have lost $2500 - which back in 1908 was a fortune.

It's pretty well documented from multiple public appearances from September 1908 to October of 1909 that they did have a working flying machine that repeatedly set endurance records.  Granted, it was far from perfect, in fact I think there was at least one fatality of a passenger during that time frame - but the machine did do what the Wrights said it could do, in fact it surpassed expectations so much that they earned a $30,000 bonus from the government.

So the notion that this photgraoph is faked, well it's far fetched at best.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

greybeard said:


> simplex said:
> 
> 
> > *Question about a 1908 photo that might be a fake*
> ...



That link is to the plate negative. If it was faked, it was done on the negative, not the print.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

I still don't understand why the OP discounts the question "Why?" 

Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57 dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in question or just this one? And if so, I ask again, why this one?

Perhaps Designer's right - there might just be some beer and a couple of ill-advised bets behind this


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## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

The original negative exists and it is in the possession of the Library of Congress that scanned it and put it on the net. The image I posted is the certified digital copy of the negative. Any modification operated on this negative after Sep. 1908 is highly unlikely.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

"certified"
is your answer then
it was certified by an expert(s) as a copy of the original.
But then you'll have to contact that expert(s) to determine if they questioned/ investigated the authenticity of the original.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

I think we are making this far too complicated.



simplex said:


> *Can somebody, on this forum, bring solid evidence the picture is authentic and was not made using two different authentic photos*,...



No.

We all apparently can give logical reasons for why it was most likely NOT faked, but definitive? No. You need the plates and an expert.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

limr said:


> I still don't understand why the OP discounts the question "Why?"
> 
> Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57 dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in question or just this one? And if so, I ask again, why this one?
> 
> Perhaps Designer's right - there might just be some beer and a couple of ill-advised bets behind this



Well there are a couple of different conspiracy theories floating around on that one I guess, first that the Wright brothers were not the first to acheive powered flight.  Some folks want to believe that a guy named Gustav Whitehead was actually the first and that the Wright Brothers stole a lot of their design from him - I haven't found a ton of supporting evidence there, while I have little doubt that Whitehead probably was working on designs for powered flight there just isn't much historical evidence that he acheived it first or that he and the Wright brothers actually met at all.

The second one I've heard is that the Wright brothers supposedly faked everything prior to 1908, but that makes pretty much no sense to me whatsoever.  They supposedly spent 4 years pretending to have a working flying machine and went to huge lengths to con people into believeing it worked, then in late 1907 early 1908 they submit a proposal to the government for a contract and they plunk down a $2500 deposit knowing full well that the government is going to demand that they prove this works or they lose the $2500 deposit.  They do this supposedly knowing full well the machine doesn't work and that they've been conning people for the last 4 years.

Then suddently in 1908 they magically pull a working model out of their keesters that drastically exceeds all of the performance expectations at the time and they manage to prove to the government it does work with multiple public demonstrations in front of eye witnesses, many of which are caught on film proving the design works.  Just makes pretty much zero sense.


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## Braineack (Jun 25, 2014)

let's talk about how Edison wasn't really an inventor instead.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > I still don't understand why the OP discounts the question "Why?"
> ...



This again brings up the question of why only this particular photo is in question. If they faked this and they faked all the experiments prior to 1908, then they must have faked all those other pre-1908 photos, right?

Was it only because this was the photo was 1904 but not published until 1908? So they question the validity based on a 4-year delay in publishing? There are SOOOOO many other more plausible reasons for this than "they faked it." Do people know how difficult it would have been to fake a photo like that in the 19-aughts?


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

limr said:


> This again brings up the question of why only this particular photo is in question. If they faked this and they faked all the experiments prior to 1908, then they must have faked all those other pre-1908 photos, right?



That's the conspiracy theory at any rate.  Doesn't really hold water too well I'm afraid.  



> Was it only because this was the photo was 1904 but not published until 1908? So they question the validity based on a 4-year delay in publishing? There are SOOOOO many other more plausible reasons for this than "they faked it." Do people know how difficult it would have been to fake a photo like that in the 19-aughts?



I don't think most people have a clue as to how difficult faking a photo would have been back then.  I had a friend who for a while swore up and down that the footage of the Hindeburg disaster was faked.  He'd bring it up all the time, he had some sort of whacky conspiracy theory involved with the whole thing as to why they would fake the film, etc, etc.

So one night I finally got fed up, I sat him down and had him watch the original 1933 version of King Kong.  I told him, look - this was pretty much state of the art special effects at the time.  So tell me again how they faked the footage of the Hindenburg?

Man, did that room ever get quiet.. lol.


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## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

> Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57  dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of  Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in  question or just this one?


I would also be interested to know if other pictures in the collection are genuine or not. However, I suspect most of them are genuine excepting maybe the dates. If somebody took a picture in Aug. 1908 and pretended it was taken in Aug. 1904 or 1905 it would be nearly impossible to prove when exactly the photo was made.
The Wright brothers have been seen flying starting with May 6, 1908. The picture I mentioned in my first post shows a late autumn landscape (the trees do not have leafs) and could not have been made between May and September 1908 (the month it was published). If genuine this photo will prove the Wright brothers had been flying since at least late autumn 1907.


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## limr (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> > Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57  dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of  Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in  question or just this one?
> 
> 
> I would also be interested to know if other pictures in the collection are genuine or not. However, I suspect most of them are genuine excepting maybe the dates. If somebody took a picture in Aug. 1908 and pretended it was taken in Aug. 1904 or 1905 it would be nearly impossible to prove when exactly the photo was made.
> The Wright brothers have been seen flying starting with May 6, 1908. The picture I mentioned in my first post shows a late autumn landscape (the trees do not have leafs) and could not have been made between May and September 1908 (the month it was published). If genuine this photo will prove the Wright brothers had been flying since at least late autumn 1907.



Well, no the photo wouldn't prove they were flying. Many of their efforts technically involved gliding, not flying, In this shot, the nose is up, so it's probably just been launched and it might not even be clear yet if they were "flying" or "gliding."

But now the argument is switching to a real photo but fake dates?

Y'know what? I'm going to take a pass on the rabbit hole.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> > Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57 dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in question or just this one?
> 
> 
> I would also be interested to know if other pictures in the collection are genuine or not. However, I suspect most of them are genuine excepting maybe the dates. If somebody took a picture in Aug. 1908 and pretended it was taken in Aug. 1904 or 1905 it would be nearly impossible to prove when exactly the photo was made.
> The Wright brothers have been seen flying starting with May 6, 1908. The picture I mentioned in my first post shows a late autumn landscape (the trees do not have leafs) and could not have been made between May and September 1908 (the month it was published). If genuine this photo will prove the Wright brothers had been flying since at least late autumn 1907.



Ok, well correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the first photographic evidence of the Wright brothers acheiving powered flight was a photograph taken in December of 1903, a full 4 years before the photograph you wish to examine.

So I guess I'm still not sure really how proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that the photograph your looking at is "real" would really prove much of anything.  But I will say that the odds that this photograph are fake are so incredibly unlikely that it strains credulity.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

limr said:


> simplex said:
> 
> 
> > > Why is this photo in question but not others? There are apparently 57 dry plate negatives from the Wright Brothers cataloged at the Library of Congress. Many of them show an airplane in the air? Are all of them in question or just this one?
> ...



Lol.. ok, well real photo but fake dates notion really doesn't wash either - it would make zero sense for the Wright brothers to risk $2500 of their own money in January of 1908 when submiting their design to the Government if they new it didn't work and all the evidence of them acheiving powered flight prior to 1908 was supposedly faked.


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## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

> "So I guess I'm still not sure really how proving beyond any shadow of a  doubt that the photograph your looking at is "real" would really prove  much of anything."


I have already explained in my previous post that, if the picture is real, it will prove the Wright brothers flew at least starting with the end of autumn 1907 which would explain why the two inventors paid $2500 in January 1908 to be accepted in a competition for building a plane for the US government. 

As a note: It has to be mentioned that, in January 1908, Augustus Herring, a rival of the Wright brothers, also paid a large sum of money, $2000, to be accepted as a competitor despite the fact it had no working flying machine. So just because the Wright brothers made a large deposit ($2500, the money earned by a worker in about 10 years) this does not mean they really had a working plane.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

Contact the Library of Congress and bring your issues up with them.
photo or dates .... I'm sure what they know in summary is available publicly.

You seem to support that their "experts" already "certify" the information.
So start with their public information as a "fact" as best known information per their experts.  The "experts" that have access to everything.


If you question their experts then that is different.
once again ... eliminate conjecture and hearsay
Go back to the original locations, reenact everything from those dates going forward and build up your case against any expert information.


Hindenburg not only had film footage, but radio recordings, witnesses watching and survivors, left over materials from the fire, flight plans, construction materials/ hydrogen, emergency crews etc, visible from all around.  One would have to disprove all of that.

King Kong wasn't real ?


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> > "So I guess I'm still not sure really how proving beyond any shadow of a  doubt that the photograph your looking at is "real" would really prove  much of anything."
> 
> 
> I have already explained in my previous post that, if the picture is real, it will prove the Wright brothers flew at least starting with the end of autumn 1907.



I'm sorry.
But have you done any research into this?
just read this


> ... making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. From 1905 to 1907, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft .... From 1900 until their first powered flights in late 1903, they conducted extensive glider tests that also developed their skills as pilots




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

So they were able to attain "flight" in 1900 ... and powered flight in 1903 .. which *is* before 1907.

I'm not a historian ... but a quick read already supports your theory.
because, at this point it doesn't matter if the picture is real or not.  They were flying before 1907.


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## Braineack (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> > "So I guess I'm still not sure really how proving beyond any shadow of a  doubt that the photograph your looking at is "real" would really prove  much of anything."
> 
> 
> I have already explained in my previous post that, if the picture is real, it will prove the Wright brothers flew at least starting with the end of autumn 1907.



geanis.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> Hindenburg not only had film footage, but radio recordings, witnesses watching and survivors, left over materials from the fire, flight plans, construction materials/ hydrogen, emergency crews etc, visible from all around. One would have to disprove all of that.



Or read some kooky internet website with some half baked conspiracy theory that really wasn't all that well thought out or researched, but if that was the only information you had on the entire thing it might be made to sound halfway plausible. In truth that's how most conspiracy theories get started, that a lot of the information/facts on a subject are supressed or ignored because they don't fit the theory.



> King Kong wasn't real ?



Not the 1933 version, no. But in the 2005 version, King Kong was real. It was Jack Black that they faked. Crazy, mixed up world out there isn't it?


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

Designer said:


> Your post makes this sound like a "whizzing" contest brewing.
> 
> Besides just looking at the image, some of us might be curious as to the controversy and the parties involved.
> 
> And how much is it worth to somebody.



Wait, a whizzing contest?  Ah crap.. ok, heading to the store for more beer.  Nobody start nothing till I get back.. lol


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## simplex (Jun 25, 2014)

*If you really want to get into a lot of technical details about the Wright brothers controversial flights you can go to this link:*

The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908. - PPRuNe Forums

I am not going to repeat here all the things that have been said there.

Anyway, from your comments, I understand that it is not possible to say with a high degree of certitude whether that Nov. 1904 picture is genuine or not.

Thank you for your help.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> *If you really want to get into a lot of technical details about the Wright brothers controversial flights you can go to this link:*
> 
> The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908. - PPRuNe Forums
> 
> ...



You're welcomed
Post 5 and 14 are specific proof to everything else you were saying in that thread.
I only looked at the first page


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

simplex said:


> *If you really want to get into a lot of technical details about the Wright brothers controversial flights you can go to this link:*
> 
> The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908. - PPRuNe Forums
> 
> ...



Actually it is possible to say with an extremely high degree of certitude that the photograph was most likely geninue. The odds that the photograph itself was faked are practically nil. What you'd have difficulty establishing would be the actual date that the photograph was taken, but frankly for the discussion of whether or not the wright brothers glided or acheived powered flight on such and such a date really proving that would be a moot point.

Now, you might be able to make out a case that what one would consider to be "powered flight" may not have occured quite as early as claimed depending on one's definition of powered flight and how much of it involved gliding vrs truly powered flight - however, can you make a credible case that they didn't acheive it until 1908? Nope. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If your supposition were true and the wright brothers did not have a working design capable of powered flight prior to January of 1908 then they would have to have been the stupidest guys on the planet at the time, not to mention the luckiest. In order for this theory to make any sense, the Wright brothers spent 4 years and goodness only knows how much money convincing everyone they had a flying machine that worked, even though it didn't. After wasting goodness only knows how much money faking photographs and fooling eyewitnesses, or at the very least bribing photographers to claim they took the photographs of successful flight years before they actually did, then they went and put a $2500 deposit down and submitted their plans to the US Government. They knew at the time that their machine was a hoax and wouldn't work, but they basically gave the government .. well lets see, adjusted for inflation your looking at.. hmm, what would be equal to roughly $60,000 dollars today to even consider the proposal knowing full well it wouldn't work and they'd lose all that money.

Then, after pulling off the scam of the century, possibly the greatest scam in all of recorded history, suddenly their machine which never worked before miraculously starts peforming far beyond anyone's wildest dreams? That doesn't strike you as being, well, pretty ludicrous really?

So, your evidence to support this? Apparently a couple of eye witnesses out of, what, hundreds? Expressed doubts? Lets see, one eye witness claimed the glided rather than flew under power. Ok, well since there was no such thing as a "expert" in powered aviation here at the time I guess my first question would be, what makes this eye witness even remotely close to being credible?

Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that this guy was there, saw the whole thing and was right, the plane glided rather than flew under power. If they had a propeller running how would this guy know the difference? How could he possibly determine, just from watching, if the plane actually flew under power or if it glided without some kind of scientific measurements and some calcluations concerning the thrust to weight ratio, the lift coefficient, etecera?

No way he could be. His eyewitness testimony isn't even worth the paper it was printed on, or in for that matter. Simply observing the test there would be no real way to determine if the plane actually achieved powered flight or not with any real degree of certainty, especially since he'd never seen powered flight before and would really have little if no idea what to look for at the time anyway.

So if your claim was maybe the original flyer didn't work as well as claimed, well that would be plausible. The claim that they didn't acheive powered flight until 1908 and everything up to that point was faked? Laughable, at best. Sorry, but it just doesn't track at all. I find it far more likely, assuming your initial assumption is correct and what took place in 1903 was more due to gliding than powered flight that they had probably made a lot of improvements in the time after the flight up to 1908, so even if their first test flight had more to do with dumb luck and just the right wind conditions by the time those 4 years had passed hat had acheived sustainable, reproducable powered flight - at least a few years before 1908. It's the only thing that makes sense.


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## TWright33 (Jun 25, 2014)

Guys.... I was there.... I don't know who photoshopped me out of the original.\

To answer your question, yes your version is fake.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

TWright33 said:


> Guys.... I was there.... I don't know who photoshopped me out of the original.\
> 
> To answer your question, yes your version is fake.



Say..wait just a cotton pickin minute here, weren't you guys being chased by a T-rex at the time? Ya.. see, I knew something wasn't quite kosher there... lol


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## TWright33 (Jun 25, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> TWright33 said:
> 
> 
> > Guys.... I was there.... I don't know who photoshopped me out of the original.\
> ...



It was pretty crazy that day


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

TWright33 said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > TWright33 said:
> ...



Is that photo original ?



I think he's just fishing for another edge on his conspriracy theory .. but got the same result on that other site
The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew in 1908. - Page 31 - PPRuNe Forums


> bral
> 
> Join Date: Mar 2000
> Location: where the work is.
> ...


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

OP is making the trolling rounds on forums of the similar discussion ...
The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew for the first time in 1908. - Pilots of America Message Board


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> OP is making the trolling rounds on forums of the similar discussion ...
> The Wright brothers just glided in 1903. They flew for the first time in 1908. - Pilots of America Message Board



Which I think begs the question, even if such where true, who really gives a crap?

I think that's the one I'm struggling with the most, really.  Oh well, when it doubt, snacks!

Still waiting for that dang Derrel to come across with that cake I was promised in another thread.. rotfl..


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

I didn't know man and Dinosaurs existed at the same time until TWrights photo

at least that is what I was taught in University

oh wait.  I forgot on TV when I was young I used to watch that History Channel show.... what was it ... oh yeah, The Flintstones.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

I picked this off of one of those other sites that he was posting too ...
thought it was cute.  But did aerosol exist during the dinosaur years ?  Is that wrong, or wright ?


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> I didn't know man and Dinosaurs existed at the same time until TWrights photo
> 
> at least that is what I was taught in University
> 
> oh wait. I forgot on TV when I was young I used to watch that History Channel show.... what was it ... oh yeah, The Flintstones.



Hello.. the land, the land of the lost!

Geez.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> astroNikon said:
> 
> 
> > I didn't know man and Dinosaurs existed at the same time until TWrights photo
> ...



Oh yeah, how could I forget that reality show!


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## tecboy (Jun 25, 2014)

What is the point of this discussion?  There is no evidence on that photo is fake.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 25, 2014)

tecboy said:


> What is the point of this discussion?  There is no evidence on that photo is fake.



Well apparently those idiots over at the Smithsonian got bamboozled again.  You think they would have learned after buying that Bridge in Brooklyn.. rotfl.  But nope, they simply can't be trusted to do the most basic authentication imaginable, I mean not when you compare that to some guy on the internet who's never even seen the original plates.  Obviously a far more trusted source than a fly by night outfit like the Smithsonian.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 25, 2014)

I don't think you can tell when that photo was taken other than when it was documented - a drab gray day in early spring around here seems about the same as a drab fall day. The trees seen in the glass plate image don't look all that different than in the photo linked below of the current day replica Wright B flyer - that photo shows dandelions in the foreground otherwise it wouldn't be obvious from the trees it was spring; in the photo from the glass plate you can't see the ground under the trees to see if there are leaves on the ground or anything blooming to indicate the season.
http://www.wright-b-flyer.org/wp-content/gallery/brown-bird-photos/070505-carbon-boom-test-2.jpg 

If the photo was published some months/years after it was taken I don't think that would be considered to be 'faked', it would just mean it was published some time afterwards. It wasn't like people were taking photos with their cell phones and posting them immediately on the internet, it seems conceivable that a photographer might have carted a camera out to an airfield and taken pictures some months or even years before a photo was published.

It's possible to stack two negatives in an enlarger but I don't know how realistic a resulting print would look. There are photographers working in historic photographic processes today, it would be possible to do some research to find out if a photo on a glass plate could have been faked (which to me seems unlikely since the photo would have been exposed in camera directly onto the plate). You could try the George Eastman House in Rochester for info. or look at the Alternative Photography site.
http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/gelatin-silver/silver-gelatin-dry-plate-process 

The reference in the article from the '50s was from someone remembering the event 40+ years later, maybe he remembered it somewhat differently than it happened or he reported what he thought had occurred (which may or may not have been accurate). There seems to be plenty to support that the Wright brothers made numerous test flights at Huffman Prairie (now on the Wright Patt base) in 1904-05. Maybe there could be differing opinions on what was considered to be an actual flight by an actual airplane but the consensus seems to be that the Wright brothers flew a plane in a circular path over a field for some minutes by 1904 and flew a sustained flight by 1905. 

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/photos/mediagallery.asp?galleryID=2608&page=2 Hover over the photo titled "Wright Flyer to..." - it refers to a commemorative event for the 104th Anniversary of Practical Flight in 2009.
Here's a photo of the 1904 Wright Flyer ll that looks like the one linked. 
The Wright Brothers | Huffman Prarie 

Seems like there's a body of research to substantiate that a plane flew prior to 1908.


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## astroNikon (Jun 25, 2014)

The OP confirmed himself that the photo was certified by experts
but then questions the authenticity

Much conflicting conspiracy theory ideology here and much more he posted on other sites ... Over and over again stating the same  people he is asking for support are wrong when they dont agree.

Basically discount experts, discount eyewitness statements, discount  relevant documentation ... Then his theory can hold some water as long as there is no dissenting comments.


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## Braineack (Jun 25, 2014)

tecboy said:


> What is the point of this discussion?  There is no evidence on that photo is fake.



he's trying to prove his crazy theory, and a few pointed him to some official docs/pics in the library on congress, so now he wants to see if he can prove the images are faked in order to fit his theory.

he believes that the wright brothers didn't actually have "flight" until 1908, when they suddenly after 10 years of toying around figured it out when they needed to prove it for a payment from the govt.  so now he has to create evidence to support his theory.


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## tecboy (Jun 26, 2014)

This is the most bizarre thread I have ever read.  The photograph is easy to fake it, but impossible to make it real in 1900 by using two negatives.  You need a 1/10th scale of a wooden airplane.  You need to have a correct angle of the airplane to shoot at as _Leonore_ said.  Correct perspective and vantage point, and correct directional of lighting and shadows.  Not only that, are the lighting and shadows hard or soft?  The airplane must matches with the landscape to combine two negative and print on one paper.  You got to be a talented Hollywood special effect artist to do that.  Not even the government can do.  The government had other things to do beside faking the photograph.  Today, anyone can makes this photograph fake and makes it real as possible by using Gimp and cheap computer.  Putting a lot of afford and spend ten hours, you get the image that majority of the people can't tell that is faked.  

Just because the op disagrees the historical facts, the physic of the flight procedure, the design of the airplane, and today reenactment, doesn't mean the photograph is faked.  The op needs to live with that and find another topic he likes and do researches instead of having grudge on the Wright brothers.


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## limr (Jun 26, 2014)

tecboy said:


> This is the most bizarre thread I have ever read.



And that's saying something around here! :lmao:



> The photograph is easy to fake it, but impossible to make it real in 1900 by using two negative.  You need a 1/10th scale of a wooden airplane.  You need to have a correct angle of the airplane to shoot at as _Leonore_ said.  Correct perspective and vantage point, and correct directional of lighting and shadows.  Not only that, are the lighting and shadows hard or soft?  The airplane must matches with the landscape *to combine two negative and print on one paper*.


 
Actually, you had to get that all on *one *glass negative using a view camera. (The Library of Congress has the glass plate negatives, not the prints.) It's even MORE difficult to fake a negative than to fake a print.



> Just because the op disagrees the historical facts, the physic of the flight procedure, the design of the airplane, and today reenactment, doesn't mean the photograph is faked.  The op need to live with that and find another subject he likes and do researches instead of having grudge on the Wright brother.



And when does the voice of reason _ever _convince someone to drop their conspiracy theories?


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## tecboy (Jun 26, 2014)

> The photograph is easy to fake it, but impossible to make it real in 1900 by using two negative.  You need a 1/10th scale of a wooden airplane.  You need to have a correct angle of the airplane to shoot at as _Leonore_ said.  Correct perspective and vantage point, and correct directional of lighting and shadows.  Not only that, are the lighting and shadows hard or soft?  The airplane must matches with the landscape *to combine two negative and print on one paper*.


 


> Actually, you had to get that all on *one *glass negative using a view camera. (The Library of Congress has the glass plate negatives, not the prints.) It's even MORE difficult to fake a negative than to fake a print.



It is good to know. Thanks for clarifying.


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## astroNikon (Jun 26, 2014)

You guys should have perused one of those Flight/Pilot forums he mentioned was proof .. they laughed him off of that after providing the information that he said didn't exist to disprove his theory.  Then he dismissed that evidence and statements from witnesses as hearsay even though he used a statement 40 yrs later as "solid proof" from some other guy.  Of course the pilots ... and glider pilots at that .. would discuss what actual "flight" means.

An interesting albeit crazy read.

I truthfully think the Martians dragged his plane around by a martian string to give it flight.  The string was invisible, so was their aircraft.  Thus the technology of the day could not see it.  But I have my proof because some guy 170 years from now will say so.  About inline with the Hindenburg conspiracy.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 26, 2014)

Faking this in 1908 would not even have been hard. So-called 'combination printing' had been standard technique for 50 years. Getting it on paper would have been considered simple. Transferring to any sort of negative would then have been one more easy step.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Faking this in 1908 would not even have been hard. So-called 'combination printing' had been standard technique for 50 years. Getting it on paper would have been considered simple. Transferring to any sort of negative would then have been one more easy step.



Umm.. the Smithsonian has the original plate, not just a print. Also this whole thing falls flat from the get go - the thought that they faked all of those flights and tests for 4 years in front of all of the eyewitnesses and then had all of the photographic evidence faked as well, frankly it's laughable. The number of people involved who would have had to be "in on" the scam would be immense, and yet for some reason no one ever came forward although none of the people involved, including the Wright brothers themselves, had a thing to gain from supposedly doing this in the first place.

Nope, sorry, that dog just won't hunt. Oh, and just for reference, this was pretty much state of the art photo-fakery at the time:

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Roosevelt-Riding-a-Bull-Moose.jpg


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## Designer (Jun 26, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Faking this in 1908 would not even have been hard. So-called 'combination printing' had been standard technique for 50 years. Getting it on paper would have been considered simple. Transferring to any sort of negative would then have been one more easy step.



Well, there you go!  I'd call that proof.


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## 480sparky (Jun 26, 2014)

All this dribble, and no one has figured out that Orville & Wilber *never existed*.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 26, 2014)

I neither know nor care if it IS fake. I'm just clearing up some misconceptions about the state of the at in 1908. Making a very very good technical fake would have been completely straightforward to one skilled in art at that time.

As has been noted, there is a lot more to this than simply examining the plate.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> I neither know nor care if it IS fake. I'm just clearing up some misconceptions about the state of the at in 1908. Making a very very good technical fake would have been completely straightforward to one skilled in art at that time.
> 
> As has been noted, there is a lot more to this than simply examining the plate.



Well, haven't seen a single sample from that time frame yet that you couldn't pretty much take a good look at the print and within minutes spot a dozen or so signs that it was faked, at least when it comes to taking two or more seperate images and compositing them together as was suggested.  If you have a sample perhaps to present, that might be interesting.


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## photoguy99 (Jun 26, 2014)

Then you haven't looked very hard. You're objectively wrong on this. Henry peach Robinson is probably a good search term to start with. But there were lots of people very good at this.

If the Smithsonian says they think it's authentic, that means they've examined the paste and the surrounding evidence, and determined that in their expert opinion it's much more likely this is authentic than otherwise.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Then you haven't looked very hard. You're objectively wrong on this. Henry peach Robinson is probably a good search term to start with. But there were lots of people very good at this.



Hmm.. lets see.. "Henry Peach Robinson was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives "

"The Smithsonian has the original PLATES".

Do you see a difficulty here at all, or are we just going to keep ignoring the single most important point?


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## photoguy99 (Jun 26, 2014)

I did in fact address that point earlier and now that I see you also cannot be bothered to read what I write, i'm done here.


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## 480sparky (Jun 26, 2014)




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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

480sparky said:


>



Oh thank God! Kittens.. were saved!

Eh... ok, well not so much I guess.  Sigh.  Valiant effort though Sparky.  Good show old bean.


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## rlemert (Jun 26, 2014)

limr said:


> And when does the voice of reason _ever _convince someone to drop their conspiracy theories?



  I can't remember where, but I saw a comment recently from someone who studies conspiracy theorists that said they usually have no trouble believing in two contradictory theories at once.


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## Derrel (Jun 26, 2014)

Did somebody just write the words conspiracy and theories (plural!) in a direct sequence? That is the hidden trigger for a link to an old movie clip that the government banned back in the early 2000's...


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## Designer (Jun 26, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Did somebody just write the words conspiracy and theories (plural!) in a direct sequence? That is the hidden trigger for a link to an old movie clip that the government banned back in the early 2000's...



Some of us (well, me, anyway) know the difference between real conspiracy and some BS Hollywood movie.  I'm glad I've never seen that one.  The so-called cop shows are full of it too.


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## tecboy (Jun 26, 2014)

There you go! Amazon


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## snerd (Jun 26, 2014)

The chair is against the wall.

John has a long mustache.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2014)

snerd said:


> The chair is against the wall.
> 
> John has a long mustache.


Is that from the Patrick Swayze movie where he plays a redneck trying to defend his brother against the evil russians, or the one where he plays a redneck trying to defend his brother from the evil mafia?

Or maybe the one where he plays a bouncer trying to defend a guy who is like a brother to him from the evil rednecks?

Hmmm... starting to sense a pattern here...  lol

Sent from my LG-LG730 using Tapatalk


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## astroNikon (Jun 27, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> snerd said:
> 
> 
> > The chair is against the wall.
> ...



Those movies were a conspiracy attempting to create a theory.


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## astroNikon (Jun 27, 2014)

480sparky said:


>




awwwwwww ... look at the cute little kittens


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## limr (Jun 27, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> 480sparky said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...



Those kittens are damn cute! Maybe they CAN save the thread!

The question remains, however: is it worth it?


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## astroNikon (Jun 27, 2014)

This thread crashed and burned before it was able to take off ... ironic that we're talking about a glider/airplane too ...


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> This thread crashed and burned before it was able to take off ... ironic that we're talking about a glider/airplane too ...



True, I would wish to point out however for the record that no actual Kitties were harmed in the making of this thread.  So, there is that.. lol


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## MarshallG (Jun 29, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Then, after pulling off the scam of the century, possibly the greatest scam in all of recorded history, suddenly their machine which never worked before miraculously starts peforming far beyond anyone's wildest dreams? That doesn't strike you as being, well, pretty ludicrous really?


EXACTLY. The fact that the Wright Brothers built thousands of excellent airplanes proves that they knew how to build airplanes. These guys were in Ohio and North Carolina, of all places. There was nobody to steal a design from. They didn't hack into France's computers and steal the plans. 

As a conspiracy theory, it's one of the worst I've ever heard.


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## table1349 (Jun 29, 2014)

MarshallG said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Then, after pulling off the scam of the century, possibly the greatest scam in all of recorded history, suddenly their machine which never worked before miraculously starts peforming far beyond anyone's wildest dreams? That doesn't strike you as being, well, pretty ludicrous really?
> ...



The wright brothers only built 30 planes themselves and a total of around 100 planes in total.  The Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company was only in business from November 1909 to early 1915 under the ownership of Orvile Wright.  It was sold in 1915 and folded in 1916.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 29, 2014)

I don't think it would have been likely that a photographer would have been able to fake a collodion glass plate photo. The collodion only lasts about 10 minutes to get an exposure. Contact prints can be made but I don't see how two images would be superimposed. I suppose someone would need to go out with an antique view camera and glass plates and use a collodion process and see if it was even possible.

Photography: The Wet Collodion Process 

Even shooting film and using an enlarger where you're projecting light thru the negative onto the easel below I don't think it would be that easy to stack two negatives and not have a double exposure. If a plane was photographed separately I wouldn't find it that easy to dodge out some background (say of the sky) in a photo of a plane, and burn in the background of a photo of a field - and blend the two images and make it look realistic in a print.

I've been past the Wright Brothers airport but haven't gotten back when it's open to see the replica B flyer, but having seen a video of it in flight it apparently doesn't go all that high or fast or far. So I don't know during early test flights if it would have been that easy to lug around a big wooden view camera and set up and expose the emulsion on the plate and manage to get a picture of a plane that was in the air for seconds to minutes - much less be able to fake a photo with what was available in that era.


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## Derrel (Jun 29, 2014)

I'm not an expert, but I'm positive that at this time, almost everybody who was out doing real-life documentary work at this time (the early years of the twentieth century) was shooting *dry" plates*....rollfilm had been developed almost two decades earlier...I do not think anybody except fine artist types would be shooting wet plate in 1904 or 1908. George Eastman began commercial, mass production of dry plates in his own factory in 1879...and there were some AWESOME cameras made that shot dry plates...basically, LARGE-sized "single lens reflex cameras", with large focal plane shutters, and massive mirrors, and "look down" (aist-level type, not eye-level use) viewfinders.

Just a reminder of how advanced photography actually was by the mid-1880's... Snowflake Bentley Biography


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## photoguy99 (Jun 29, 2014)

Yes, dry plate. Essentially the same as modern negative materials for our purposes, and a somewhat soft image at that.

ETA: The catalog record indicates that this is a 5x7 dry plate.

Since the aircraft image itself is slightly blurry, adding enough blur to "cover up the seams" in the final transfer to the plate would have been trivial. Since the aircraft itself is mostly made up of straight lines, and the background is literally featureless sky, I am pretty sure I could have cut the masks to make a fake very similar to this photo, a fake that's just as convincing as this photo. And I'm just a guy with a razor blade, not an actual contemporary expert.

Forensics doesn't work the way people think it does. Sure, you examine the primary object closely. Sometimes, when you have a clumsy fake, you can immediately say "it's fake" and there are probably cases where there is a feature so difficult to fake that you can pronounce it authentic based on internal evidence. The "zoom in.. enhance.. zoom in.. pan left.. AHA THE GRAIN PATTERN DOES NOT MATCH!" scenario is rubbish, unless you're dealing with a deeply incompetent faker.

In the normal case, though, you have neither situation.

You examine external evidence. If the Wright Bros had wanted to fake such a picture, who would they have gone to? Are there any records of any sort indicating that they had any unusual transactions with such a person, or anyone on the short list? Is there any other external evidence that points toward a good quality fake?

At the same time, you try to validate the claims of authenticity. Do we have objective eyewitness accounts? Did the Wright Bros maintain journals, and were the smyth-sewn, and do they contain other authenticable elements in the appropriate chronological order?

You put all this stuff together, apply some experience and judgement, and you make a call.

Examining the photograph, be it a print or a plate, itself is a very very small piece of the puzzle.


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## vintagesnaps (Jun 30, 2014)

Wasn't the original on glass plate? It looks like it in the picture, you can see what looks like a crack in one corner. 

In the late 1800s into the 1920s plate photography was still in use with view cameras and folders - some cameras had backs for plates or film. Dry plate photography came into use which made it possible to pre-coat the plates and carry them, expose the images and later develop them. The exposures took much longer so some photographers continued to use wet plates. 

Found this on Kodak's site - there was non-curling film in 1902 and 'safety' celluloid film by 1908 (instead of the earlier flammable nitrate film) but it wasn't commonly used til the 1920s. There are pictures of photographers with plate cameras in the 1890s into the early 1900s on the AntiqueCameras.net site.

So it doesn't seem likely that a photographer would have schlepped a camera to a field, then somewhere else to take a picture of a plane, then been able to do a contact print of a double exposed image and make it look like one image, especially with the detail seen in glass plates. Even if it was possible there seems to be documentation of numerous test flights to support that by 1904 the Wright brothers had a plane not a glider in flight.


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## astroNikon (Jun 30, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> At the same time, you try to validate the claims of authenticity. Do we have objective eyewitness accounts? Did the Wright Bros maintain journals, and were the smyth-sewn, and do they contain other authenticable elements in the appropriate chronological order?
> 
> You put all this stuff together, apply some experience and judgement, and you make a call.
> 
> Examining the photograph, be it a print or a plate, itself is a very very small piece of the puzzle.



In the other links, pilot forums, they provided the list of witnesses and statements that were given by the witnesses at that time.

The OP decided that those witnesses were non-valid for the sake of his argument.


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