Comments on: Am I fake or not?

By: Airminded · Finding the target

Airminded · Finding the target — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:21:20 +0000

[...] to a sequence of photos showing a Zeppelin being shot down. I hate to say it but I think these are fake [...]

By: Airminded · Am I fake or not? — II

Airminded · Am I fake or not? — II — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:23:31 +0000

[...] aforementioned Mike Dash sent me the above photograph, presumably a fake, wondering if I’d seen it before and if I knew its provenance. I have not, but I agree [...]

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:25:12 +0000

I reckon it's pretty good for the time, actually, it's just implausible. I don't think people at the time 'read' photos in the same way as we do now, and things which seem like obvious fakes today seem to have been accepted without comment back then.

By: Rik Shepherd

Rik Shepherd — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:40:54 +0000

Until I actually bothered to check the dust jacket, I'd assumed the picture had been produced just for the Janes book - I really had no idea that anyone had claimed they were genuine.

On the other hand, photos in interwar magazines sometimes to look fairly unconvincing.

Interesting that the Time article describes people assuming the pictures generated by superimposing real negatives of real planes, rather than models.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:05:27 +0000

Thanks, Rik -- I have that edition of Jane's, actually. Yes, the photos were published in Illustrated London News in October 1932, but even at the time there were doubts about their authenticity. An article from Time (16 January 1933) summarises questions raised by C. G. Grey in The Aeroplane. Interesting that it took until the 1980s to finally debunk them.

By: Rik Shepherd

Rik Shepherd — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:57:08 +0000

The dogfight picture appears, either in colour or colourised, on the front cover of Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War 1 (Studio Editions, 1993). There's a similar photo on the back cover and the jacket describes them as:

Photographs of air fighting in the First World WAr. First printed in the Illustrated London News, October 1932. Reproduced by kind permission of the Illustrated London News.

By: Airminded · Trouble at Millwall

Airminded · Trouble at Millwall — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:22:11 +0000

[...] In a comment to an earlier post, Alan pointed out that it has been claimed that the photo I used was a propaganda fake. As I have previously discussed the subject of fake combat photos, I was appropriately mortified at the thought of having been taken in myself! So let’s have a closer look at it … [...]

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:25:45 +0000

Thanks Godfrey. I wonder when that raid was ... maybe the one of 23 September 1916?

By: Godfrey Simpson

Godfrey Simpson — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:58:32 +0000

My mother described one that came out of the clouds to bomb a pub and bakers shop in Old Ford in the first world war. She was 18 years old at this time.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:38:11 +0000

Thanks Allan! I found a listing of the photos and a bit more info on Archer here.