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Cottingley Fairies

liveinabin

liveinabin

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I'm sure they already have a thread but I can't find it.

Any way, did anyone see the Cottingley Fairies photos on Antiques Roadshow today?

They had the original prints and the camera they were taken with, brought in by the daughter of one of the girls.
 
Wow, wish I'd seen that. 8)
Is it repeated?
 
You should be able to catch it on iplayer for a week.

I was under the impression that both cameras were now the property of The National Museum of Film and Photography at Bradford?

Gordon
 
replying to myself - yes both cameras are at the museum, I have an email confirming this from March 2007 when I was doing some research on Cottingley.

Gordon
 
Replying to myself again - the camera that took the first two photographs is at Bradford as is one of two folding cameras gifted to the girls in 1920, so it must be the second of these

Gordon
 
Saw that, interesting that the girls admitted that most of the photos were fakes, but insisted that one wasn't...
 
Not seen the programme yet but looking forward to it. Didn't they also claim that the fakes were an attempt to represent what they'd actually seen?

Also, the hand of one of the girls on one photo was strangely distorted in a way that seems not have been explained.

It's still an interesting subject. :D
 
The daughter of the girl who took the photos was absolutely convinced about that one photo wasn't she? The one that had been blown up, where you could see through the faiires.
 
So, if there was one genuine photo, which was it?
 
The one that the mother claimed was real was one I had not seen before.
However it looked as fake as all the others to me. Just a double exposure.
 
I live right by Cottingley now, I can't think of anything more unlikely than fairies round here, still if I see anything I will let you all know.
 
How interesting that the one photo seems double-exposed. The others were faked by photographing paper cut-outs of fairies placed around the girls.

Using double exposures would've been quite a feat, for untrained young girls at that time.
 
If that photograph is the one that the girls claimed was real maybe some credance would be lent to it by the fact that the fairies hairstyles and clothing are different to those in the other photographs which appeared contemporary to that of the time

Although the fairies are two-dimensional they seem to be semi-transparent and behind some of the plants. Was this taken close to ground level? The foreground appears to be rough grass
 
the Case of the Cottingley Fairies

I read a book about them. The story was quite interesting. I found it quite funny in a sad way that the author seemed to believe that the fairies were real.
 
On this picture the girl's hand is strangely elongated. I've never read an explanation of this.
 
Hm, you're right, almost looks like it was photoshopped, very strange. :?
 
Yup, s'weird, innit? It's as if it's a false hand, stuck on the picture or on the girl herself.

The girls' explanation was that it was a distortion due to the camera angle but as nothing else is distorted I'm not convinced.
 
We had a talk at the Edinburgh Fortean Society once from a chap who addressed this issue.

It's because she is a shape changing alien and she is having difficulty keeping her human form together. Honest he really said it and he really really believed it.

Gordon
 
The 'Cottingley Fairies House' was up for sale last year. :shock:
 
Hi Guys,

The elongated hand has been explained several times. The girl is holding her hands side-by-side and the hand which is further away is held forward of the front hand. Where the fingers of the two hands line up they look like one very long finger. nothing paranormal!
 
Oh yeah, on closer inspection I can see you're right, how disappointing. :)
 
plusk said:
Hi Guys,

The elongated hand has been explained several times. The girl is holding her hands side-by-side and the hand which is further away is held forward of the front hand. Where the fingers of the two hands line up they look like one very long finger. nothing paranormal!
Click to expand...

Not questioning you, but I am being rather dim. Why can I see the back of her hand and her finger nails if this is the case?
 
Hi,

It's 'cos she's resting her left hand loosely on the right side of her left knee, with the thumb lower than the other fingers. So the back of her left hand is towards us.

Likewise the back of her right hand is towards us, so we see the backs of both hands including fingernails.
 
I'm sticking with the aliens. :lol:

The girls themselves put it down to the camera angle. The fact that they didn't seem able to come up with a simple 'both hands making one long hand' explanation implies that the know little about photography, yet they are believed to have double-exposed a print to produce the 'transparent fairies' image.




Aliens, yup.
 
Errm,

Isn't saying it's the camera angle just a simplified way of saying what I've said? After all they were talking to a reporter who was summarising everything they said anyway.

On the other hand I'm not convinced about double exposure being the reason for the 5th photograph. It looks to me like a straightforward shot of something - but I have no idea of what it might be.
 
plusk said:
Hi Guys,

The elongated hand has been explained several times. The girl is holding her hands side-by-side and the hand which is further away is held forward of the front hand. Where the fingers of the two hands line up they look like one very long finger. nothing paranormal!
Click to expand...

That doesn't work, you can see her thumb and 3 fingers from the other hand, between the 4th and 5th finger of the front hand. And they're in a vertical position. The other hand looks quite big and meaty too.

I would guess the hands and fairy were drawn together, then placed over the photo.
 
Hi DDMD,

When the girls 'fessed up, they said that they had created the fairies by having paper cut-outs held up by hat-pins stuck in the ground. The girls would not have had the facilities to first photograph the girl, stick pictures on the photograph and then re-photograph it. In those days films had to be developed in a shop.
 
The pictures were taken on glass plates and developed individually in Elsie's father's dark room in the cellar.
 
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