Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

The newest senior member of the Oswald Innocence Campaign is Ian Greenhalgh, who is a columnist for Veterans Today online magazine. 

Ian Greenhalgh is a photographer and historian with a particular interest in military history and the real causes of conflicts.

His studies in history and background in the media industry have given him a keen insight into the use of mass media as a creator of conflict in the modern world.

His favored areas of study include state sponsored terrorism, media manufactured reality and the role of intelligence services in manipulation of populations and the perception of events.

Ian has already been part of our discussion group. Here is his perspective on the Zapruder film, which I found very interesting.

They surely didn't do all of the work required to produce the Zapruder film version we have all seen in 12 hours or even a day or two.

What I think they will have done is the logical thing - to have done as much of the work beforehand as possible, preparation to save time. This may have included shooting footage from that same vantage point in Dealey Plaza so they could produce a matte. However, I tend to think they didn't do that as the multiple errors in the background figures etc suggest they used duplication of frames or rather, the background portion of frames and if they had done it with a matte and a second piece of film shot at a different time, the result would have been more convincing.

Or, and this is perhaps more likely, they only did a very rough and ready hack job, good enough to fool people when shown on the low res 400 line BW TV of the time, then polished it subsequently - when was the film unearthed? Mid 70s when it was shown on Geraldo?  That gives them years to have worked on the film. Time.Life published stills, but those are a hell of a lot easier and less time consuming to manipulate and falsify than a motion picture running at 25fps.

Remember, they only got away with it because the low quality of Television at the time meant no-one could see a good enough quality copy of the film to discern the errors that are now obvious with modern technology.

I reckon they didn't bother to do a better job than the hacked up version we have all seen because they didn't forsee the modern technology that allows us to examine images in such detail. What sufficed for low res TV screening now looks very bad on high res equipment. It was only in the 90s when CD Roms appeared containing the Zapruder film that people could start to study the movie, and we have come a long way since then in imaging technology. Today anyone can do image analysis as the tools are ubiquitous, but in the past, only people like William Cooper, who supposedly sent the film to Japan in the late 80s to be analysed and 'enhanced' - resulting in that wonderfully nutty 'Greer turned round and shot JFK in the head' nonsense.

And here is his perspective on the Altgens photo, expressed just today:

Hi Ralph

Sure, I'd  be happy to get involved. I'm a photographer with a passion for old film cameras and I still shoot and develop film plus my degree is in filmmaking so I can probably offer some insight with some of the photos. I'm familiar with your work on Oswald in the doorway which I find compelling and thorough. That Altgens 6 image has always fascinated me, I strongly suspect it has been altered in many different areas of the image as well as the doorway portion. If only we had the original negative to study, we could probably learn so much!

Ian

Well, unfortunately, we are as unlikely to find the original negative of the Altgens photo as we are of finding the original print. I'm sure the powers-that-be have seen to that. Some may think that the original is in a vault somewhere, but I doubt it. Why keep something under lock and key and have to guard it for eternity when you could just destroy it? That's what I think they did. 

But, it pleases me greatly to acquire someone like Ian with real technical expertise in photography because the fact is: the Altgens photo is a monstrosity and an abomination, and so is the Zapruder film, the Moorman photo, the Wiegman film, the Hughes film, and so are the Backyard photos, etc. etc. The JFK assassination is, in all probability, the most photographically altered event in the history of mankind. It is grotesque what they did to the images- what they tried to get away with. We welcome Ian and look forward to his input.