Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [12]
The famous physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, consulted by Doyle, is only lukewarm in his reaction, but Doyle points out that the photos were taken by "two children of the artisan class," and "photographic tricks would be entirely beyond them." He also notes that it was impossible for the girls, unskilled as they were, to have produced a successful fake on the very first try.
But more convincing and authoritative proof is provided. A Mr. H. Snelling, with more than thirty years' experience in photography, and very familiar with special studio work, has declared positively, after much study of the negatives and prints, that (1) there was only one exposure (thus no double-exposure effects were possible); (2) photo number one was taken "instantaneously" (meaning at a shutter speed of 1/50 or 1/100 second); and (3) the fairies in photo number one moved during the rapid exposure. Gardner tells us that Snelling "stakes his reputation unhesitatingly" on the truth of his verdict.
Doyle himself takes the valuable negatives to the Kodak company in Kingsway, where a Mr. West and another expert cannot find "any evidence of superposition, or other trick." But, they claim, if they set to work "with all their knowledge and resources" they could produce such a photo. Doyle declares, "It was clear that at the last it was the character and surroundings of the children upon which the enquiry must turn, rather than upon the photos themselves."
Gardner makes a strong statement concerning the photos. Confronted by criticism from one Major Hall-Edwards, a medical authority, he counters that Doyle has not "taken it for granted that the photographs are real and genuine," as claimed by the major. "It would be difficult to misrepresent the case more completely," says Gardner. "The negatives and contact prints were submitted to the most searching tests known to photographic science by experts, many of whom were frankly skeptical. They emerged as being unquestionably single-exposure plates and, further, as bearing no evidence whatever in themselves of any trace of the innumerable faking devices known." He adds that such faking would be possible only "by employing highly artistic and skilled processes."
The fact that Elsie was employed in a photographer's shop is discounted by Gardner. He denies that "to be employed as an errand girl and help in a shop indicates a high degree of skill in that profession." He concludes with, "We are not quite so credulous as that."
A Mr. Maurice Hewlett adds unkind remarks to the discussion when he describes Gardner as "deficient, it would seem, in logical faculty." Hewlett goes on to say that "we have all seen photographs of beings in rapid motion... the photograph does not look to be in motion at all... because in the instant of being photographed it was not in motion. "Gardner immediately counters that "Hewlett makes the astonishing statement that at the instant of being photographed it is not in motion... Of course the moving object is in motion during exposure... and each of the fairy figures in the negative discloses signs of movement. This was one of the first points determined." Gardner is right about the movement statement, and Hewlett stands corrected—if the fairies were in motion.
Several critics point out an apparent fault with photo number one of Frances and the fairies. Why, they ask, is Frances looking directly at the camera rather than at the fairies? Easily explained, says Gardner. She was accustomed to the fairies but fascinated by the camera—a new experience for her. Furthermore, Gardner asks, "would a faker, clever enough to produce such a photograph, commit the elementary blunder of not posing his subject?"
In his book The Coming of the Fairies, Doyle refers to a final technical proof of authenticity. H. A. Staddon, "a gentleman who has made a particular hobby of fakes in photography,"