QUOTE(taiwopanfob @ Thu 19th June 2008, 3:56am)
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You can download a 15MB TIFF by clicking on the thumbnail at:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/P...(ppmsca+05649))It looks like a scan of the actual print held by the LOC. When you look at that there is no question whatsoever the weird thing behind the judge's head is in fact white-out of some kind. Why the photographer did that is a good question.
More seriously, though, the image at the Commons
has been doctored to remove this whiteout. Compare:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Al...nship_NYWTS.jpgNote that there is no hint in the caption that the image has been modified from its source at the LOC and the destination at the Commons. Not good!
QUOTE
That said, the shadow in front of the judge's face looks like retouch, but it might be behind the head, too.
Flash is the only source of illumination in this picture. Observe the sharp shadows on the papers in Einstein's hands, the dark background, and getting darker as you go further away. The specular reflections off eye glasses of a few people in the gloom have no other simple explanation.
The flash was position above and to the right of the optical axis, as can be seen by the shadows being cast down and to the left. This means that the strange dark area in front of the judge's face is the shadow of the judge himself, cast onto the people in the background.
Chances are excellent that this picture was taken with a Graflex Speed Graphic:
http://graflex.org/speed-graphic/P.S. Oh cool! There is more than one at Wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Citizen-Einstein.jpgThis one is unmolested, beyond some cropping.
Very good! You're dead on, and I missed a bunch of stuff. The audience is indeed as you say lit only by the camera flash, which is close to the lens. Of course one of those disposable magnesium bulbs (remember them?), and this one, one of those giant bulbs that news photographers used in Graflexes. Yes, the flash is high and to the right of the lens (as seen by the photographer behind camera), as in the Graflex, and this shows up not just in shadows, but also as the position of the high-right-of center specular reflections in the eyeglass lenses of the nearer two audience people-- off the lens-glass you're seeing a direct MIRROR of the flash-assembly itself, curvature of the lenses themselves making little difference, so the round flash image comes back high-right of the center of the each eyeglass lens, opposite to shadows, which as you note are all slightly low-left. And yes, that's the judge's head-shadow on the audience to his head-low-left, with a bump which is probably his chin. Einstein's head shadow shows up as some dark to the image left of HIS (right) ear, again on his head image-low-left. Thanks!
Yes, I had noticed that one of the images on Google had been modified to black out the white-out! But I thought that was the because the white out was a thing. With better res, I see it's not. And golly, that it is white-out of the original. Probably to get somebody with a silly distracting expression or closed eyes or something, behind the judge. All this should be discussed on the COMMONS image comment, to save some other poor schlubs from having to figure it out again.
Thanks again for pointing out what should have been obvious to me.
M.
[imgx]http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/timeline/images/_cards/1932_172_card.jpg[/imgx]