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The Cottingley Fairies

cliveh

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The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986). Do you think these Fairies actually existed? If not, how were they produced?
 
cliveh said:
Do you think these Fairies actually existed?
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No.

cliveh said:
If not, how were they produced?
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"In 1983, the cousins admitted in an article published in the magazine The Unexplained that the photographs had been faked, although both maintained that they really had seen fairies. Elsie had copied illustrations of dancing girls from a popular children's book of the time, Princess Mary's Gift Book, published in 1914, and drew wings on them."

They were paper and put in front of a camera.
 
Fairies were perhaps conceived by daydreaming drunkards observing butterflies in the woods. It was an interesting enough concept that it caught the imagination of many generations and was expanded upon.
 
I remember seeing one of the ladies appearing in a local TV program when she confessed to the hoax.
She was probably around pensionable age in the interview. She said she didn't want herself and her sister to be remembered by their grandchildren and other relatives as the dotty old ladies that talked to fairies.
It was time to reveal everything before time ran out for them.

The homemade cut out paintings of fairies positioned on the branches, access to their fathers amateur darkroom, and a visit from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were all mentioned.

I believe the camera given to the two girls by Sir Arthur is in the Bradford Photographic Museum, England.

Kodak officials examined the prints and negatives at the time of the fairy photographs, but could not find anything unusual at the time.

A lovely harmless tale from less hectic days.
 
Since the earliest days of photography, people have devised creative ways to make photographs of things that didn’t exist. However, truth is often stranger.
 
I think an extended fictional story of this history would make a great Disney film. A sort of cross between a documentary history and Toy story.
 
cliveh said:
I think an extended fictional story of this history would make a great Disney film. A sort of cross between a documentary history and Toy story.
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They did it - in 1997.

 
If I set my car’s sat nav to find a route that involves crossing the English Channel or the Baltic Sea, the very prim English lady inside it says “This route involves fairies”. So they do exist.
 
As a matter of fact, my home is only a stone's throw from Cottingly, and I remember years ago they had the two old ladies concerned on the local TV evening news channel where they admitted it was a hoax.
What I find more interesting is that at the time of the hoax no photography expert or major photographic manufacturer could prove it wasn't true and in those days Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels who was considered to be one of the leading photographic experts of those days thought they were genuine.
 
benjiboy said:
What I find more interesting is that at the time of the hoax no photography expert or major photographic manufacturer could prove it wasn't true
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Well, an examination by a manufacturer would have found no manipulation of the glass plate or print. They may not have felt it was their place to comment on what the content of the photo was. They could say for certain the plate took a photo of what was in front of it.

Also, the people bringing the plates or photos to photography experts may have been the one to not want the experts to comment on the content of the photo beyond whether or not there was manipulation.
 
I believe the magicians of the day had debunked it.
 
It is hard to believe that anyone was naïve enough to fall for the prank. I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have been what they call suggestible. He also believed in spiritualism.
 
It's a study in the power of what we "want" to believe. I have a similar photograph.



The story is that I was taking my sister and brother in law for a tour in the Ford and decided the road was too washboard so stopped and turned around to exit the way we came. But while stopped I noticed a glint out in the sage brush and went to investigate. Partially buried was a lug nut cover from a Ford f150 that had the cheap steel wheels. I was going to leave it where I found it but thought . . . I know what to do with this! I told my BIL to ready his phone to take a photo. I set the UFO in flight and Tony snapped a photo. Then I said, OK my turn and he promptly set it again in flight and I took this picture. Fun!

But having shown this image to many people, there are two distinct responses! Most people cannot be convinced that it is a UFO and want to know what the object is and how the image was made. But more than once there has been the opposite effect. Believers who refuse to believe my actual account of making the picture. For them, that's a UFO from another planet and there is no convincing them otherwise.

We've come full circle. With AI, a photograph is no longer evidence . . . of anything. Today I don't have to have the Ford, or drive it many miles into the desert, or find the object, or have the clever idea to "fly" the UFO, in order to make this photograph. Photographs prove exactly; nothing.
 
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Nonsense.
Anyway, can anyone recommend a good lens and vantage point to photograph the Loch Ness monster?
 
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