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Post by blackbird on Mar 9, 2014 14:15:58 GMT -6
It is with some hesitation that I start this thread, but here we go anyway. The idea of tampered/manipulated photographs has long been part of the PID community. And like other areas of study pertaining to this subject, it has been abused or neglected by many. My desire is that this thread would help to separate the "wheat from the chaff" so to speak in regards to tampered photos. We might not gain any ground at all, but it's worth a try, as I believe that the past and present manipulation of photos depicting Paul McCartney is a very real and serious issue. It is my belief that, by and large, the manipulated photos fall into two main categories: those that depict alterations to the features of the original Paul, and those that utilize photographs of Faul post-'66 combined with earlier images of James Paul. Interestingly enough, I think the images from the initial Beatlemania days ('63-65') have seen the least amount of tampering, while those from the band's early period have been heavily manipulated (Hamburg stinks!). The reasons for this might seem obscure at first, but become clearer with some thought. Photographically, the Beatles were constantly in view after their popularity exploded, and consequently, manipulating images of Paul from that period would entail a great risk. For this and other reasons, I think emphasis was placed on the early years for the purpose of effecting a 'book-end' impression: if the images on both ends of the Beatlemania period obviously depicted the same individual, then less scrutiny would be leveled at the photos from that time span. For the most part, I think the strategy has worked, as critics of PID often point to images from the early days to show that Paul was never replaced. Here are a few comparisons that (I believe) reveal the usage of Faul photos to create "Paul" images from an earlier time:   |
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Post by blackbird on Mar 19, 2014 12:17:45 GMT -6
More examples of the same (but for creating Beatlemania photos):   Absurdly, people will use such comparisons to insist that Paul never changed. Hello! |
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Post by blackbird on Mar 20, 2014 12:01:58 GMT -6
They fiddled with the contrast in the first two photos, which gives an initial impression of two separate images. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that one photo is an original and the other a manipulated duplicate. Adjusting the contrast for the 'older' photo effectively washes out the face, and the details of the skin are lost in the resultant glow. While this might make the face appear younger, it is also a telltale sign of manipulation. Many of the 'faulish' photographs from the pre-Beatlemania era display the same attributes, which many chalk up to a pale complexion. Nonsense I say! There is a difference between a pale complexion and featureless skin that resembles pudding. In some of the photos, Paul's face is little more than a white field with staring black eyes and outrageous eyebrows. Now either Paul was donning clown makeup and penciling in his eye brows back in Hamburg, or something is wrong here.
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Post by Russ on Mar 24, 2014 10:47:54 GMT -6
These are very interesting photos. I can understand the hesitancy to post something like this because after a certain point people will just throw up their hands and call you paranoid. Hitler said it best though, "Always tell a big lie". The bigger the lie the more it will be believed. Although the internet is awash if fake moon-landing photos you can't usually get a conversation about that off the ground. The fact that no other country ever went and we seem to be unable to easily go back doesn't dissuade anyone.
So if Faul's people, or whomever, goes out and changes photos on the web they need not worry, because people won't believe anyone would go that far...
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Post by blackbird on Oct 28, 2015 21:39:20 GMT -6
Below are a few examples of manipulated Paul images. It seems apparent that his features have been blended with the replacement's.  The above photo is a particularly crude example of manipulation, obviously executed before the days of Photoshop. The difficulty the forger(s) had with matching the smile lines is apparent.  Here's another. The right side (our left) of the face is Faul, the left side is Paul. |
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Post by blackbird on Jul 15, 2016 11:45:44 GMT -6
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Post by kittyknows on Jul 15, 2016 19:17:03 GMT -6
Dang that last set....!
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Post by cellogal on Jul 15, 2016 21:01:21 GMT -6
LOL! My thoughts were "Holy crap"   |
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Post by revolver on Jul 31, 2016 18:27:05 GMT -6
What's the story behind these photos, blackbird? Never seen them before. Hope you don't mind I pulled them from the same photobucket account as the photo above. They look like passport photos. They almost look more like Paul than Faul. Really strange.   |
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Post by blackbird on Aug 1, 2016 13:25:37 GMT -6
What's the story behind these photos, blackbird? Never seen them before. Hope you don't mind I pulled them from the same photobucket account as the photo above. They look like passport photos. They almost look more like Paul than Faul. Really strange. Hi revolver, I share your surprise! I hadn't seen these either until a few weeks ago. The captions I found for them were "October, 1966". This is supposedly his disguise when traveling through France. Problem is, this is Faul's early look but the photos obviously depict JPM! What's going on here? If Paul died in September, these couldn't have been taken in October. Did he die later than we think and was this look then adapted to Bill? Was he on the run and in disguise when these were captured? His expressions indicate apprehension or wariness. These were clearly taken for a passport or some other official document. These images really tripped me up for a bit! Here is Paul sporting Bill's France/Kenya look! However, I realized that Paul looks awfully young in these photos. I now wonder if they were taken in the early sixties at some point. We know little of JPM's early visual history, because it has been so heavily tampered with. We need to find corroborative photos or written evidence that would indicate a mustache for Paul early on. The bit that would positively date them as late '66 would be the presence of his lip scar. But I just cannot make out whether he has it or not. Perhaps you can see it? |
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Post by revolver on Aug 1, 2016 20:28:30 GMT -6
I don't see any scar, just the mustache covering his upper lip. I agree he looks younger but not 6 years younger. I think that rules out a passport photo before they went to Germany in 1960. There are no other photos of Paul from that era looking like that. The glasses and mustache look more like a disguise. I know they sometimes wore disguises during Beatlemania to escape the fans. Here's a site with one of the photos dated October '66 British Invasion. Is that where you found it? |
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Post by blackbird on Aug 2, 2016 14:57:15 GMT -6
Here's a site with one of the photos dated October '66 British Invasion. Is that where you found it? There, and also a Google Image search  . |
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Post by revolver on Aug 3, 2016 19:46:48 GMT -6
That mustache looks a lot like those painted on fake ones that were in those early 1967 Beatles magazines, like in my avatar.
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Post by blackbird on Aug 4, 2016 14:36:02 GMT -6
I thought the same!
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Post by fab3 on Aug 4, 2016 17:01:58 GMT -6
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