Monday, February 15, 2010

Recognizing Fake Photos

The claimed Margaret Sanger image circulating on Right wing hate sites. The image- based on conceptual spaces perspective analysis - is clearly a forgery.


As I noted in a blog last year, photo fakery has become a huge enterprise: both creating fictitious images using one of the many software programs available, or trying to assert a (demonstrated) fake is real. See, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/11/hany-farids-pixelated-illusions.html

Most recently, the slander of Margaret Sanger by rabid right wingers has assumed new proportions with the publication of a photo purporting to show her addressing a KKK rally. (Figure 1). As I will show, the image is manifestly fraudulent and those who show it are frauds and also slanderers.

Note that when one analyzes such photos the best approach is the conceptual spaces analysis. To review: We consider the image to be confined within a Cartesian metric space d(x,y) which can be resolved into successive “shell frames” or concentric rectangular frames: d1(x1, y1), d2(x2,y2)……..dn(xn, yn) with the nth shell nearest the outermost limit of the photographic field.

Spurious images will not consistently "hold up" as one migrates from one frame - say defined by:

d’(x) = w_H×(d(x)) , d’(y) = w_H×(d(y))

to another, say defined by:

d"(x) = w_H×(d'(x)^bH)

d"(y) = w_V×(d'(y)^bV)

where the latter format reflects an expansion (though larger frames) with accompanying weights for respective dimensions (defined for successive frame geometric distributions) - ensuring conformity to Stevens’ power law.

In most cases, the forgers err by not correcting their images to be consistent as the outward expansion alters the exponent, b. Most don't take care to do this because it requires a level of sophistication in image manipulation that they lack, or their programs don't possess. In most cases, the correction of the image manipulation distortions needs to be done using fractional calculus techniques. That is, the forgers need mathematical corrections that use functions:
D_t(x^b) = G(b + 1) / G[b – t + 1]^x(b – t)

and

D_t(y^b) = G(b + 1) / G[b – t + 1]^y(b – t)

Where the G –functions are Euler Gamma functions, to correct geometric anomalies in discrete frames. (The D_t(x^b) and D_t(y^b) apply to fractional deviations that occur at a certain rate as the frames expand, for a given (x, y) defining the frame with the distortion)
Thus, they make the usual error of naive forgers and simply copy an image (say of Sanger giving a speech to a women's group) into an image of a Klan rally. Voila! Sanger addressing Klansmen! Not bloody likely!

To break it down into simpler (or more concrete) terms, the parameters w_V, w_H quantify (for a given image and its geometric properties ....e.g. for preservation under mirror reflection) a defined rate of linear dimensional expanse along the horizontal and vertical frame axes, respectively for a given d’(x), d’(y) while the parameters bV, bH assign estimated weighted deviations in w_V, w_H such that, for a normative and standard image geometry :

sin (bH / bV ) ~ tan (w_H/ w_V )

in the limit of small enough d (= arctan (bH / bV ) ) where the value of d is in radians, the frame expansion should be uniform or close to it.

The problem with the alleged Sanger -Klan photo is that it isn't!

Look carefully at the image and the perspective(s) of the extrapolated (height-)averaged lines from Sanger's center of gravity. The absolute distance within a normal Cartesian superposed frame with x –y axes is:

d1(x,y) = {(y2 – y1)2 + (x2 – x1)2}^1/2

Since the values (x1, x2...etc.) and (y2, y1....) can theoretically be found at all points as the expansion of perpective proceeds, it means that the height function h(y) must be consistent within those expanded frames. E.g. for a person standing near the periphery of the outermost frame in the foreground the height function h(y") should be much greater than for a person standing near Sanger's focus or center of gravity. Careful inspection of the Sanger photo shows this doesn't apply. The KKK members certainly conform, BUT NOT SANGER!!

Sanger's height function h(y') - call it, is actually what one would expect for the outermost Klan member in the foreground on the left. In fact it's even greater than that by ~ h(y')+ 0.3h(y"). In other words, the frame expansion function for the image is all wrong. It places Sanger at a point in the expanding frame totally inconsistent with the rest of the image. For her vertical dimension to be faithful to that depicted she'd need to standing way in the foreground, not as far back as she is.

To put this another way: for the alleged photo to be taken literally as a genuine historical image, Margaret Sanger would have to be at about the same height as a 7 1/2 ' tall basketball player.

The photo is a sham, a fake and a forgery....but then we know that those who suffer from biblical dementia and hyper-gullibility are all too eager to accept any remote "evidence" that fits into their hate fest agenda.

2 comments:

Nemo Gneiss said...

http://www.questia.com/library/2174884/margaret-sanger-an-autobiography

Read page 366 and 367 for free.

or if you cannot read here is someone to read it for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fj-E-Yk78M

That Margaret Sanger spoke to the KKK is not a lie.

Copernicus said...

Again, this is bollocks - conflating the WOMEN'S AUXILIARY of the KKK - with the actual KKK! 9And again, anyone can fake anything). (I.e. the robed freaks who were NOT the women's auxuiliary of the Klan)

Yes, in 1926, Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the wWOMEN AUXILIARY of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey - but this was not the KLAN itself.

The problem here is one of basic English language use which most of the Reich doesn't grasp, i.e. the difference between an auxiliary offshoot and being an actual member of the Klan per se.

My point was that the photo was faked in showing a mob of guys in robes that depicted actual Klan members not the women's auxiliary she actually spoke to.

as it was she did described the experience as almost like talking to "children". (Most Klan-linked females were kept dumb, pregnant and barefoot ....to serve at Mr. Klanman's beck and call.

Don't refer me to another book! My dad lived in Klan territory near Searcy, Arkansas for most of his young adult life and told me all about how they operated and the roles of the women - which were supportive, NOT central!

The bottom line? Sanger, to spread her critical message, probably felt she had to reach out to every and anyone, even consorts of the dregs.