Question Time! Period Photo Or Modern?

Johnny_Reb_1865

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Nov 3, 2019

Edited copyrighted photo.*
 
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Interesting question.
My first impression was that the cannon was a pretty tacky prop, especially since the weapons are infantry muskets. Yes, it does seem a bit "clean." And one of the guys sitting at least appears to be wearing glasses. Unfortunately I can't enlarge the photo.

However, the blurry guy in the middle indicates an OLD camera was used, or one with a long exposure. All of the men seem to be wearing the same or similar uniforms. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't often, if ever, see that in re-enactor units.
Several of the men are wearing bedrolls, but not the others. One has to ask why.
Looking at the postures and facial expressions, they all appear to be similar to those we see in original period photos. If this was staged, they did a fantastic job.

I suppose that if we could enlarge it enough, we could see the markings on the musket lockplates. Maybe one says Pedersoli......but I'm not so sure. That cannon still bothers me.
 
My vote is "modern but very clever !". The blurred soldier is a very clever touch to simulate long exposure.

Without going too deep into nerdy, old timey camera stuff... Cameras in those days had a very long "focal length" and amongst other things, this means that in authentic old photos, while the main subject matter will be in focus, the background will be blurry. It's something that no longer happens with things like cell phone cameras where everything is roughly in focus. It's an effect that modern amateur photographers need to duplicate "after the fact" unless they are using fairly sophisticated digital cameras with manual controls for aperture and shutter speed etc.

So, with that in mind, the tree branches look too sharp. Should be fuzzed out a bit and maybe some motion blur can be added. Very cool though !
 
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Nice modern photo, they just didn't get the phone line out of the pic.
When you blow the photo up you can see it in the upper right side of the photo.....
 
From 2016 - "Junior Civil War Soldiers Recreate their Roles at Alamance Battleground April 2-3"

 
From 2016 - "Junior Civil War Soldiers Recreate their Roles at Alamance Battleground April 2-3"

Drove by there yesterday and would have stopped except for the pouring rain...…...
 
Drove by there yesterday and would have stopped except for the pouring rain...…...
Rain? What's that? NorCal has had no rain in March. No rain in February. Only a small amount in January. The rest of the CONUS better hope we get rain or 35M Californians will be moving North and East!
 
From 2016 - "Junior Civil War Soldiers Recreate their Roles at Alamance Battleground April 2-3"

[/QUOTE} How did you know this ? Are you one of the reenactors ? This is the way all pictures of reenactments should be done.If I were a reenactor this is the way I would want my pictures to be done.If you want to do the part ,you should have the photos done to show the time and not some super electronic camera or IPAD picture,That is like taking a old picture and colorizing ,you miss what the photographer saw and what he wanted the public to see ,the hoor of a battle or the conditions of a army.Take the picture of Lee on Traveler and colorize it then you see what I mean.That is like statues where the man on the horse is a model and not the real person.
 
I was just going to guess modern too! The one guy on the side, next to the one in glasses, appears to be wearing white socks and desert boots. Plus, the pants on some of the men look wrong. Too baggy and too light colored.
 
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