(This file is a modified and expanded version of a two-part message that I posted in the General Discussion section of this forum.) ------------------------------------------------------------ A BRIEF CRITIQUE OF THE EXPERT TESTIMONY GIVEN TO THE HSCA IN SUPPORT OF THE ALLEGED GENUINENESS OF THE BACKYARD PHOTOS by Michael T. Griffith ------------------------------------------------------------ In studying the HSCA testimony of photographic experts Cecil W. Kirk and Calvin S. McCamy on the backyard photos, I have found a number of problems with their defense of the disputed pictures. What follows is my analysis of some of their arguments and claims. The Scratch Marks ----------------- There are three different methods by which a forger could have made the frame edge markings appear on the backyard photos. These methods have been discussed elsewhere on this forum and will not be elaborated upon at this time. Therefore, let us consider the reported appearance, on all of the prints, of two scratches that are unique to the Imperial Reflex (IR) camera. Kirk testified that scratch marks unique to the IR camera were discovered on all the prints. It was found that when film was moved over the film plane of the IR camera, the plane made two scratches in the film that were unique to that camera. Repeated tests showed that the scratches occurred in the same location on the film each and every time. However, this does not prove that the backyard photos are genuine, since the scratch marks, like the frame edge markings, could have been duplicated. In moving the film over the film plane in either of the three processes referred to above for recreating the edge markings, the film naturally would have received the two scratch marks as well. The DeMohrenschildt Photo and CE 133-A --------------------------------------- Kirk and McCamy, like their colleagues on the photographic panel, assumed that the DeM photo was a copy of 133-A negative. But the DeM photo shows more background than 133-A, and it is considerably clearer than 133-A. Therefore, how could both photos have been produced from the same negative? Why Wasn't the DeM Photo Cropped? --------------------------------- Kirk testified that 133-A and B, as well as the C prints, were all cropped. When asked why they were cropped, Kirk replied that this was done for aesthetic purposes. He stated this a number of times, accurately observing that people preferred to have their pictures processed in this manner. Fair enough. But then why wasn't the DeM photo also cropped? Lines in the Chin Area ---------------------- McCamy admitted that not just one line, but two lines, were found in the chin area. Of the first line that was detected, McCamy said, "What we found was that on second and third and more prints, or prints that were published in books, there waas a tendency to build up more and more contrast here so that this looks more and more like a line." McCamy then added, "That line is nowhere near as pronounced on the original materials." In a fake photo, successive generations bring out the contrast line. This particular line was not seen with digital image processing, nor was it seen when the photos were examined with high-powered magnifying and microscopic equipment. Observes photo analyst Robert Groden, "The line across the chin will not be seen when magnified by the above methods. The line is something you can see with your eyes" (HIGH TREASON, p. 202). McCamy obliquely but clearly confirmed this fact. Now we come to the line that WAS noted when the negative was scanned in a digital image scanner. Although McCamy only mentioned one such line, other lines might also have been detected with this method, since the panel's report says that "the scanned image of the Oswald backyard negative did exhibit irregular, very fine lines in the chin area." However, for the sake of argument, I will assume that only one "irregular" line was noticed during digital image scanning. McCamy declared, without any qualification, that the line in question was caused by a water spot. The panel as a whole, however, was not so positive. The panel's report states that "the cause of the lines has not been definitely established." The report says the water-spot explanation is "probable," but not certain. Yet, the panel added that there was no indication that the "irregular, very fine lines" were the result of an attempt "to fake the photograph," in spite of the fact that the lines occur in the highly suspect chin area. Duplicating the Nose Shadow? ---------------------------- McCamy displayed a photograph, labeled JFK F-271, of a model that was supposed to demonstrate "just how it can happen that the head can be tilted and the shadow tilt with it." But as McCamy explained how this was done, it became apparent, even to the obliging Committee, that the angle and tilting for F-271 were based on a highly improbable set of assumptions. In fact, when Congressman Fithian pointed this out, McCamy admitted that "there would be a number of assumptions necessary . . . to interpret the Oswald photograph from this demonstration of this effect." McCamy then said that this was not the way the interpretation was done, and that the actual interpretation was done "by a vanishing point analysis." In other words, McCamy, in the most discreet manner possible, admitted that his alleged duplication of the variant shadow under Oswald's nose was done with a model that was tilted and angled on the basis of highly improbable assumptions. Moreover, Mr. Brian Mee, a professional photographer and photo lab technician, has stated that the vanishing point analysis does not explain the conflicting shadow angles in the backyard pictures, and that such an analysis is no substitute for a direct study of the shadow angles themselves. But this is not all. In the reenactment cited by McCamy, when the model's head was tilted and rotated, the subject was "NO LONGER LOOKING AT THE CAMERA" (emphasis added). With the head in this irrelevant position, the only way the reenactment technicians could get the shadow to fall straight down in F-271 was to cause an "ever so slight" shift in the camera's position to "bring the image back to looking about, as it did at first." In short, in order to allegedly duplicate the variant nose shadow, not only was the model's head tilted and rotated at the same time to precise points, which made it so that the subject was no longer looking at the camera, but the camera itself was then shifted just to reacquire a frontal view of the face. Even Congressman Fithian noted that "the probability would be that those three things . . . wound not come together at the same place, at the same time." It was at this point that McCamy conceded that "a number of assumptions" would be necessary to "interpret the Oswald photograph" from the demonstration depicted in F-271. There are even more pronounced problems with McCamy's alleged recreation of Oswald's variant nose shadow. For one thing, and this is a very important point, the lighting used for F-271 was above and directly in front of the model. Yet, the backyard photos were supposedly taken between 4:00 and 4:30 in the afternoon, according to McCamy and the other members of the photographic panel. Furthermore, if one reads McCamy's testimony carefully, it will be seen that the reenactment he cited actually confirmed the impossibility of the shadow tilting with the head. Here is what McCamy said: Here [in the first reenactment photo] we see the head vertical with the overhead lighting CASTING A SHADOW OF THE NOSE DIRECTLY TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE LIPS. Here [in the next reenactent photo] the head has been tilted. . . . ONCE IT IS TILTED, THE SUN CASTS THE SHADOW SLIGHTLY TO THE RIGHT. This is exactly what we would see in the backyard photos if they were genuine. When Oswald's head is tilted slightly to his left, as it is in 133-B, the shadow of his nose should no longer fall straight down over his lips, but this is not the case. As for the position of the lighting in the reenactment cited by McCamy, the light source was overhead and had to be directly in front of the model in order to cause the shadow of the nose to fall directly toward the center of the lips. However, as mentioned, according to Kirk and McCamy, along with the rest of the photographic panel, the backyard photos were taken between 4:00 and 4:30 in the afternoon, causing the body shadows in 133-A fall in a ten o'clock position. I repeat this discrepancy because it is a key contradiction in McCamy's arguments. He appealed to a reenactment in which the light source was in a different position than where he himself insisted the sun was in the backyard photos. This fatal weakness seems to appear elsewhere in McCamy's arguments, as we shall see below. Explaining the Conflicting Chins -------------------------------- Now we come to the crucial issue of the chin seen in the backyard photos. As is well known, Oswald had a markedly pointed, cleft chin. This can be seen in any of the undisputed pictures of him (see, for example, Robert Groden, THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT, pp. 102, 107, 108, 130, 141, 165, 171; hereafter cited as TKOAP). But the chin of the figure in the backyard photos has a square, flat chin. (I might add that in the TKOAP pictures, Oswald's chin is pointed and cleft even when his mouth is in varying positions.) Mr. McCamy claimed that in some photos of Oswald in his younger years, his chin was "more rounded and didn't seem to show this cleft as much." First of all, the appearance of Oswald's chin as a youth is irrelevant, since the backyard photos supposedly show him as an adult. Putting that fact aside, and just for the record, however, I dispute McCamy's assertion. I would direct the reader's attention to pp. 188 and 190 of British scholar Matthew Smith's book JFK: THE SECOND PLOT. Page 188 shows a picture of Oswald in the Civil Air Patrol, i.e., when he was about 15 years old. In this photo his chin is just as pointed and cleft as it is in later pictures of him. (This same snapshot can be seen on page 130 of TKOAP, although it is much larger in Smith's book.) Page 190 shows a picture of Oswald when he was in school, either junior high or high school. Here, too, his chin is clearly pointed and cleft. The pictures McCamy displayed of the younger Oswald which supposedly showed a more rounded chin with less cleft were so unconvincing that Congressman Fithian said, "I did not visually at least identify any other chin that was even approximately as square as the one in the backyard photograph--from all of the pictures that you put up." Mr. McCamy's only remaining argument was that the point of the chin in the backyard photos allegedly disappeared in the shadow of the chin. "It just disappears in the shadow," he said. McCamy's "best evidence" to support this claim was a police photograph of Oswald showing a PROFILE view, i.e., a picture that was taken of him FROM THE SIDE. McCamy admitted, grudgingly and obliquely, that none of the frontal shots of Oswald's head supported his theory. But, said McCamy, in the police profile shot, . . . there is APPARENTLY a rather wide, broad, flat area here. If this were illuminated from above, you can see that the shadow MIGHT very well be cast, even as high as this. It COULD BE cast fairly high. If it were, then the apparent point that one sees in his EARLIER photographs would not show up. (emphasis added) Why "apparently"? Is this allegedly "rather wide, broad, flat area" there or is it not? What did McCamy mean by "his EARLIER photographs"? Was he referring to the pictures of Oswald in his younger years? This seems to be the case. If so, what relevance do these photos have given the fact that the backyard snapshots supposedly show Oswald as an adult? Frankly, I find it hard to take McCamy's waffling and theorizing seriously. Instead of credibly dealing with the numerous photos which show Oswald with a pointed, cleft chin, McCamy appealed to a lone profile picture and then offered an unlikely theory based on speculative assumptions. The plain, undeniable fact of the matter is that in every frontal picture of Oswald's face, his chin is clearly pointed and cleft. Another problem with McCamy's claim that the chin point vanished in shadow is that he made it sound as though he was assuming that the sun was overhead and directly in front of the figure. McCamy made it clear that, in order to have the chin point disappear in shadow, he was presuming that the sun light was coming from high "overhead." He described the sun light with the following terms: "the overhead illumination," "high level illumination," "illuminated from a very high angle," and "a high level of illumination from high above him." This sounds like a description of the light that the sun would radiate at noon time, not four to four and half hours later in the afternoon. Further confusing matters, McCamy cited the eye shadows to support his vanishing-chin-point theory. He said, The eyes, for example, hardly show up on the backyard photographs because of this overhead illumination. But the eye shadows in the backyard photos surely were caused by sun light at around noon because they fall straight down into the eye sockets. I think McCamy realized this difficulty, for he continued as follows: Of course, the nose shadow is produced by that [i.e., the overhead illumination that caused the eye shadows], but the chin form is not delineated well on that picture at all because there is little or no light coming from the front. First of all, McCamy certainly had not proven that there was "little or no light coming from the front" in terms of the light hitting the face. There was plenty of light striking the face from the front, which is why the nose and eye shadows are readily visible and fall straight down in a twelve o'clock position. Second, the statement that "the chin form is not delineated well" was merely McCamy's opinion. McCamy had no choice but to deny that the chin form was fully visible in the backyard photos, otherwise he would have had to admit that the chin in those pictures was not Oswald's. It seems to me that the chin form is definitely visible in the DeM photo, and it is still square and flat, as it is in the other backyard pictures. Furthermore, in a reenactment photograph shown in Jack White's video FAKE, the chin form of the man is also visible. The man is standing in Oswald's backyard; he is striking a pose almost identical to that of the figure in the backyard snapshots; and the sun is at about a four o'clock position in relation to his body, thus causing the body shadows to fall at a ten o'clock slant, as in 133-A. Yet, the man's chin form is visible. I might add that the man's nose and eye shadows do NOT fall straight down; rather, they conform to the shadows cast by the body, just as one would expect. Variant Shadows: A Valid Criterion After All? --------------------------------------------- After going to great--I would say convoluted--lengths to dismiss the variant shadows in the backyard photos as evidence of fakery, McCamy explained how he spotted fakery in a picture that a fellow panel member had sent him: He [the fellow panel member] spent 40 hours with an assistant preparing a fake photograph of a man standing in a backyard. When he presented the photograph, he mailed it to me, I pulled it out of the envelope, and as I pulled it out of the envelope I said it is a fake. I was rather surprised that it was that easy. As it turned out, what he had done was to make a photograph, a 6-foot photograph of a 6-foot man, and this was placed in the backyard, and it was photographed. But there was a thing that caught my eye instantly; that is, that there were shadows that were cast by parts of a dark suit. There were shadows that were cast by parts of a railing immediately behind the man. When the suit was in full sunlight, it exactly matched the railing. But the shadows on the suit didn't match the shadows on the railing. I find it rather odd that this was the same man who had just denied that the variant shadows in the backyard pictures were evidence of fakery. The contradictions between the shadows in those photos are far more numerous than, and at least as pronounced as, the shadow discrepancies in the photo described by McCamy. Let us detail some of the more serious shadow problems in the backyard pictures: The nose and eye shadows fall straight down. In fact, the nose shadow forms a nearly perfect V-shape as it falls straight down. The position of the nose and eye shadows indicates that the sun was directly above and slightly in front of the head. In other words, the nose and eye shadows were caused by the sun at around noon time. Yet, the body shadows in 133-A and C fall at a ten o'clock angle, indicating that the body in these pictures was photographed much later in the day, at around 4:00 or 4:30. Furthermore, the nose shadow remains the same in all the snapshots, even though the head is tilted in at least one of the them. This is a photographic impossibility. Additionally, since the nose and eye shadows fall straight down and hence indicate a sun directly above, both sides of the neck should be in shadow. However, although the right side of neck is almost totally in shadow, only about half of the left side of the neck is in shadow. Unanswered Questions -------------------- In my mind, Kirk and McCamy left a number of questions unanswered. For example, * Why are the body shadows in 133-A and C at a ten o'clock position, while the body shadows in B are closer to a twelve o'clock position, when these photos were supposedly taken within seconds of each other? * In the panel's own photogrammetical analysis of the distances between objects in the backgrounds of the photos, only "very small" variations were found. How could this be if the pictures were taken the way Marina said they were? What are the chances that the camera would have remained in almost the exact same position given the manner in which the photos were reportedly made? (Photographer and photo lab technician Brian Mee has said that the variations in distance should be much larger since the snapshots were taken with a hand-held camera after the camera had been handed back and forth to advance the film. Mr. Mee has also observed that the minute differences in distance could easily have been produced by a technique know as "keystoning.") * Why were the clothes shown on the figure in the backyard photos never found among Oswald's possessions? * Why was Oswald never known to have worn the watch that is on the figure's left wrist? * How could the photos be three different pictures when various shadows and patches of light in the background remain in the same position and/or retain the same form? Mike Griffith