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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

quite an interesting foto


Guest gumbirsingpun

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Guest gumbirsingpun

hi friends

m not sure if you hae ever come across this foto while surfing amang those thousands o webpages wi regards to the western front,

i have found the foto quite interesting, thats the reason why i wanted to share it with you

regards

tuna

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For someone to be that close to a shell burst I'd say it's been staged. The background looks real, it's just the foreground that doesn't look right.

Steve

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I agree with Steve, the figure looks unreal.... hand painted.

In any event if a shell landed that close surely the person wouldnt have time to raise their arms to shield themselves they would be dead or unconcious before they hit the ground?

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I agree with Gunboat....the figure and explosion at the bottom certainly looks like an add on.

Andy

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I think what's being assumed is that the 'flash' is the shell explosion. IMHO, this is either a later re-touch or a fault on the negative. If it's a fault, it could be a genuine pic but...

The figure in the foreground with arms raised has definitely been 'improved'.

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You'd also have to think that if the camera were that close to the explosion it and the image would have been damaged/destroyed.

Also it appears in the darkness there are soldiers coming down the trench (perhaps a German helmet outline) and they are not reacting to the 'explosion'. Where as the obvious soldier has been doctored that alone does not cause me to doubt the picture. It has more to do with what else is in the pic, the quality of the image, and quite honestly the direction of the blast. Why is it only going out towards the right in almost a straight line across unlike the almost verticle blast in the background?

Andy

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Tuna

Just because the picture is posted on a website does not mean that it is genuine.

Andy

So you mean there are fakes on t'internet??? what about all those nice nigerians offering me money, and only yesterday i won a million quid on a lottery!!!

Of course its fake.

Mick

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I've only ever seen two genuine photographs of the close-up of a shell burst (both of which killed the photographers, and both of which post-date WW1). Neither of them look anything like this (nor does the famous pic of the explosion of a Jap Kamikaze on a US A/C in 1945 - which also killed the toggy!). To be honest, I don't think that the camera technology of the time would be able to capture such an image (they were only just about able to 20 years later!).

To me ,like oh so many of the WW1 "action" shots, this is an obvious fake (and not one of the better ones either - though I've seen worse!)

Dave.

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The shell-burst is definetely added later and looks like a drawing to me.

Camera technology in the early 1900's certainly wasn't sophisticated enough to capture shell-fragments during an explosion. Even today it would be extremely hard to make such a photo in the field.

regards

Roel

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  • 2 weeks later...

Looks like the Shellburst and the Soldier have been painted onto the Photo to me. :D

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