Fake or fiddled?

Just thinking on a purely technical level about the alleged Prince Andrew photo, does anyone else think the light is coming from two completely different angles?
That flash in the window behind is surely coming from camera right, whereas the subjects appear to be lit from camera left....

any thoughts regarding technical aspects?

this one?

I'm not really seeing a "second flash" illuminating from the left. I think it's pretty head-on light from the camera's built-in flash with classic red eye as Chris mentions. If there was flash from our left, his shirt/shoulder would have been more blown out and there would have been a Rembrandt shadow to the side of her nose. The overall lighting is too even.

I think it's an "honest" shot. Andrew decided to hang with the wrong people, lived the high life and got caught.

It goes without saying that my sympathies are with the victims.

Well, there are only two people that actually know the truth. But the question that needs to be asked is “What has Virginia Roberts Giuffre got to gain by lying?” The answer to that, as far as I am aware, is nothing.

And imagine the ignominy of being sacked by your own mother. And things are now so bad for him that rumour has it that next year he is heading for the jungle in “I’m a celebrity…”

Mind you the “Firm” are just like any other large, dysfunctional family, living off state benefits in a council house. And the biggest joke of all is that the British Royal Family aren’t actually British; they are German, apart from Philip who is Greek.

sapearl wrote in post #18970881
I'm not really seeing a "second flash" illuminating from the left. I think it's pretty head-on light

I agree. The highlights on the two main subjects are centered. They're also rather low (e.g., cheeks, not cheekbones); photographer wasn't tall. The brightest part of the rear finial is its middle.

joeseph asked for thoughts on technical aspects only. Commenters so far have a hard time restraining themselves, eh?

kiwichris wrote in post #18970863
this one?

I would say the flash is on camera and the angle between camera and flash is small enough to produce red eye on the two main subjects, and bounce off the window, appearing to come from the right.

Yes - that's the one. Agreed that the flash is on camera but something about the shadows behind things (and lack of shadows behind things) makes me wonder...

john crossley wrote in post #18970895
It goes without saying that my sympathies are with the victims.

absolutely.

joeseph wrote in post #18971093
Yes - that's the one. Agreed that the flash is on camera but something about the shadows behind things (and lack of shadows behind things) makes me wonder...

There is a shadow from the girls arm on the woman behind her also that woman head on the wall and the girls head on the window. The flash was almost exactly straight on so the shadows are hard to see. But dare I say the truth is not hard to see in this instance.

OhLook wrote in post #18970988
I agree. The highlights on the two main subjects are centered. They're also rather low (e.g., cheeks, not cheekbones); photographer wasn't tall. The brightest part of the rear finial is its middle.

joeseph asked for thoughts on technical aspects only. Commenters so far have a hard time restraining themselves, eh?

Yeah my fault, it just slipped out. Apologies.

kiwichris wrote in post #18971141
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Yeah my fault, it just slipped out. Apologies.
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That's okay, Chris.

I don't see anything wrong with going off-topic. . In fact, personally I have no interest in the technical aspects of this photo, but when I saw the young woman I was instantly smitten, and had to look her up and see more images of her. . I'd not heard of her, nor anything about this situation (whatever it may be) .... but when I see a young woman that looks that gorgeous, I just gotta see more! . Now I'm searching the web for more photos of her from back then when she was so good looking.

So no problem with going off topic, as far as I'm concerned. . Off-topic is often much more interesting than on-topic, here at POTN.


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I found a couple of larger images and pulling them into PS, you can play around with the different filters like shadows/highlights, emboss filter, curves and such. It looks to me as if the image is of 3 people in that room. If you do some serious pixel peeping, you can see that the lens CA is consistent throughout the image. With the emboss filter, it really brings out the flash shadows and highlights and they are all consistent between the three subjects. I suppose the faker could have done a face replacement but even there, the two main faces look consistent and nothing points to a second image being introduced. If it's a fake, it's a really good one. Of course, seeing the original paper print it was scanned from would help tremendously. It's hard to tell with the low quality pictures we have access to.

Larger image here and here and here.

I think the photo was originally taken on film, reports say that a photo of the original was taken and a copy of that is what we are being shown.

If the original ws digital, there would be little degrading with copies, and even the most rank amateur probably could fix the red-eye as an auto fix is usually incorporated in even basic software.

More here but this item is about more than the photo so be warned https://www.stuff.co.n​z …rew-virginia-giuffre-saga

seems like quite the stretch to come up with reasons for it being fake...especially when it's probably more likely to be real than fake in the first place

Interested to know where the light is coming from that casts the shadow on the bannister knob...