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I wasn't sure whether to put this in general because its not specifically Dark Basic or Games related. But its a query about 2d image composition so I'll put it here For any1 wondering why I care, Its for an understudy I am writing.

Ok so most people know the facinating (imho) story of the Cottingley Fairies and photographs. As we know these photographs are single exposure, and untampered with (Note I didn't say not faked )

But this singular image I'm including here to me looks all wrong. Ignore the goblin and his lighting etc, I'm talking about the girl.



Her hand is just wrong, isn't it? Her fingers are way to long and the hands too big, it looks like ET! I'm tempted to say this is because of the angle at which she is sitting, her hand being closer etc. But still it looks freakish.

Now I have no real training in 2d art or photgraphic conmposition, so can anybody else lay comment on the dimensions of the girl? Or were photographic lenses then warped / distorted? Any input would be very interesting, thank you!

Now back to my studies

Cheers, Sam / K2

One possibility is that the lens itself was warped, manufacturing processes not being what they are today. But to me it looks strangely like for some reason they chose to use a wooden hand
I can tell you that distortion is definitely not caused by natural foreshortening, but with a monorail view camera which I'm pretty certain would have been used to make that image it is possible to distort perspectives in 3 degrees of freedom, for instance to point a view camera upwards at a building, you can tilt the front lens so as to make the buildings lines appear parallel, rather than vanish to a point. In this case, perhaps the girl just had an unreasonably hideous hand, and the artist decided to tilt the forward lens to grab more of the pixie/fairy thing, which may not have looked correct otherwise(being a model). The parallax error thus introduced seems also to have affected her left leg, interesting stuff

Thank you that was a good reply!

I was semi under the impression it looks like a fake hand too, although I can't distinguish any way for girls of such an age and upbringing to have had the means to make or get hold of one secretly, and also can't think of any particular reason for them to do so.

Whilst the above isn't the intire picture, the hand is far from central in the image, but I certainly don't rule out the lens being distorted as you suggested, being probably manufactured between 1910-1915.

This continues to interest me, especially it was only in 1983 when there was ever any evidence that the images were faked, and only in 1986 did the photographers ever admit to faking the photos. Even more interesting is that both the girls eventually said that all images were fake except one, which they both claim to have taken.

Being that they both took the photograph without each other's knowledge it is a double exposure, and therefore impossible to prove as genuine, but they both claim to have taken the photograph of 2 genuine fairies, whom they had seen and played with all along, but who refused to be captured on film. Supposedly it was their disire to prove what they knew to be true that lead them to fake the snaps, and the last photo is genuinely of true living fairies (or to be more correct faeries)

A nice, if implausible story Which I guess will never really be proved as true or not

One reason to use a fake hand would be to conceal the real hand operating strings/rods etc to control the puppet, and the more I look at it the more that's what it looks like is happening, but I'd have to see the original, it's truly a most disgracefully malformed hand, so maybe they got the stableboy to carve it for them, swearing him to secrecy in return for certain privelidges...

As far a faeries go, to me it looks like a lovingly if somewhat amateurishly crafted puppet/marionette, (check out the thing's right forearm!) possibly made by the same person who crafted the hand

They were never moving pictures, this was amature photography in 1916 for 2 photos, then a third series in 1920. According to the girls themselves, its actually a flat cardboard cut out, drawn by the girl and secured with a hat pin. I can certainly see what you mean about it being like a puppet/model, but the creatures in the other images are a load more obviously flat than this one. As you pointed out the right arm is very out, as are many parts of the drawings. The interesting thing is that because the cut outs existed in the picture in real life, so therefore the pictures / negatives hadn't been editted, many, many people credited these photos as genuine, up to as late as 1986

If you look closely at the belly of the gnome you can see it, although these scans aren't as clear as original prints obviously. Hillariously enough, the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually believed the hat pin in the image to be a belly button, thus proving that faeries reproduce in a similar manner to humans. Unlike his Sherlock Holmes creation, Mr Conan Doyle was a deep spiritualist and wrote 2 magazine articles and a book using these pictures to prove what he believed to be true.

Just out of interest, heres the other 4 images, I think they are enchanting in their innoicence, and have long had an interest in the legend



This is the original image (after remastering) 1916, taken because the 2 girl's parents did not believe they played with Fairies in the woods. Notice the fairy playing the clarinet like instrument, possibly meant to be a celtic style whistle has no wings. It seems a strange thing for the girl to forget! The second image is the "big hand" one above also 1916, bit 3 weeks later, when their parents still dis believed them.



In 1919 the images were discovered by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who was a keen member of the recently formed religion, Spiritualism, who saw these pictures as concrete proof that fairies existed, fuelled to write a book in 1920, when the negatives were certified single exposure, and also that the negativs confirmed the fairies were moving when the photograph was taken (obviously now due to the cardboard blowing in the wind. If they had been genuinely flying their wings would be far more blurred, like the waterfall behind them, in slow exposure.) He commissioned more images from the girls, who came back with these following 3, published in 1920. The focus changes and the misspositioning of the right leg in the third image (explained by Conan Doyle as the fairies only having ghostly bodies for visual puropses to the girls and were therefore maliable. This is also how hew explained the modern haircuts and dress styles, and similarity to popular painted images of the time) make it the least believable. However I like this image best for its innocence





This fifth photograph is the one that the girls, much later in 1986, claimed was the only genuine one, as I mentionned above. I have included it at a higher res as the fairies are less clear due to accidental double exposure. There is one in the top left, another in the lower right.



The above illustration is taken from "Princess Mary's Gift Book", a war fund children's charity book, and was only discovered in 1983, where an incredible resembalance is seen in stature and pose with the first image. Its quite clearly where the girls copied their illustration from. Funnily enough, Colan Doyle's work was included heavily in the book, and he himself never noticed the remarkable similarities.

Even on their deathbeds the girls swore that they had seen fairies in the wood, and just faked the photos so they would not be labelled as crazy.

There was a recent big budget motion picture film called "Fairy Tale - A True Story" very closely based on the story. I haven't yet seen it, but am seeking a video copy.

Whilst the subject of fairies may seem girly I'm very interested in folklore and the 'truth' behind its origins. I am currently writing a thesis on this story

Yeah, definitely interesting, but now you mention how they were done and included the other photo's (I knew nothing of this subject - most intriguing!) It's really as simple as the fact of the way the light reflects off a flat surface, they are all so evenly reflective. Still, it's hard to imagine these days how this type of photography would have impacted upon society at the time, much like the Flemish master's perfect perspective painting would have I imagine...

Now I look at the first pic again, trees tend to grow towards the centre of the sun's mean arc accross the sky, however the tree on the far right is bowed towards the right, and the one beside it on the left is bowed towards the left in a way which looks like a parallax error... This could have been introduced within the enlarging process, with a negative being warped by long exposure to heat from the enlarging lamp, or simply low quality film handled clumsily by the girls. Also a drop of fluid on the negative could cause this type of thing. One other possibility is that during the chemical processing, a drop was sliding over her hand before the print was dropped into the fixative. If you look closely at the top of her hand and the space above it, there does infact seem to be a kind of circular displacement. I'd love to see the originals, I'd be able to tell a lot more
The thing to do would be to get pics of the negative itself if still in existance, to compare with the prints.

'tis an interesting subject, how myths are created and embedded within folklore, and how they persist so long without being disproven, mostly due to the tireless efforts of those who want to believe, poor doyle, so analytical yet so naiive

Yeah that sounds perfectly feasible. You're right about the circular displacement, very interesting, thank you!

Doyle's reputation was severly damaged at the time, and you can see why. He actually dedicated a whole book to these photographs and how they proved fairies to exist You'll notice today that most sites about Doyle will completely ignore the last few years of his career, as if they are an embarassment to his fans

Unfortunatly the negatives appear to be gone, although I came across and original non touched up photograph (supposedly)

IIRC Doyle was also into spiritualism and when some friends asked Houdini to demonstrate how sittings and materializations where hoaxed in an attempt to stop him making an ass of himself Doyle became convinced Houdini was a spiritual medium without knowing it and tried to convince Houdini that he was a medium and not actually tricking Doyle but producing real results, I tend to think that maybe Doyle was amusing himself at the expense of the people around him, I can`t see he would be so totally taken in when he was actually told and shown how it was done, as for the fairy photos, I heard of them but when I saw them I was sure they where cardboard cutouts, they just look too flat even in a 2d photograph, as for the testimony of the witnesses, well we now know about false memory syndrome, I guess keeping up the story so long they finally convinced themselves.

Mentor.

Oh yes, by today's standards they look very fake. But at the time, photography was a new thing, and also expectations on what a 16 year old girl was mentally capable of were significantly lower too I imagine there were many sceptics out there, but the fact is they couldn't be PROVED fake as the photos were untampered with, so many ppl believed it at the time!

You're right about Houdini, but according to my research, Houdini was not a spiritualist, and didn't believe in the majority of Doyle's theories, which oftentested their friendship. It seems that Doyle truly believed it all however, even if he was by that time, rather old and weak