Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 March 21

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March 21

Duplicated people in very old photos

Hello, a while back I saw some old photographs, I think online, but possibly in print. I think they were related to the USA civil war, but they could also be any old (i.e. ~1850-1900-ish) group photos. Because of the very long exposure times (or maybe some type of tracking shot or slit-scan?), people figured out that they could appear on both ends of the wide shot photograph by running behind the photographer to the other side of the group (after they'd already been registered in their first location). Can anyone help me track down some instances of this available online? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 19:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

After more searching, I've found this [1] example, though it is much more recent that what I'd found previously (it even mentions the use of an old-at-the-time camera). Still interested in older examples. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not all that antiquated. Or maybe it is. But as recently as 1969, someone did that on my junior high class picture -- panoramic pictures required a rotating lens setup. See Widelux. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 20:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Still in use in the late 1980s on our class Washington, DC trip. Rmhermen (talk) 20:52, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Holy crap. We had a teacher do the same thing during OUR Washington, DC class trip in 1989. Weird. Yeah, I have a picture stashed away someone, a panoramic picture, and one of the teachers ran from one side to the other to end up in the photograph twice. --Jayron32 22:15, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Happened in my school trip to D.C. in 1995. I think we might be on to something here :) Ditch ∝ 22:17, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to get off subject here, but there was a recent T.V. show about some old photograph in a library where the method used to take the picture produced an effect where, when zooming in with modern methods, very, very small details in the background could be clearly seen, similar to what we have now with digital photography. Anyway, just an aside if your interested in such things. I'll see if I can find a link. Ditch ∝ 22:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't find a copy online but at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, there is such a photo where, if I remember right, Eastman himself appears at both ends of a panoramic staff photo. Dismas|^(talk) 23:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Assuming you're right, then the technique could have easily been around during the US civil war. SemanticMantis (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks all. This is a difficult concept to search for, and I'm still interested in other old examples or further info. I only found my link above by using the 'wrong' term: "double exposure"! Perhaps specific photographic terms would help. From what I can tell from the links above, this process must be similar to slit-scan, in that different portions of the film are exposed at different times. But this panorama technique is also different, because either the lens (newer) or the camera (older) must also move in order to allow for "duplicate people." SemanticMantis (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

yeah, it's pretty well known that with current camera/phones that have the panaromic thing which takes a shot, you rotate a bit and align the marks, takes another shot, etc. you can do that sort of thing, even accidentally. I have a totally inadvertent shot of a street with 4 identical women pushing identical strollers. Gzuckier (talk) 15:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

People who never grow up

Back in college, there was a young lady who always ate by herself in the cafeteria, and who had the appearance of a 12-13 year old, prepubescent girl. We (my friends and I) assumed at first that she was the child of a professor, but then we would see her around campus in some of our classes, so we realized she was a student. One day my friend (male) approached her in the cafeteria and invited her to eat with us (a group of males and females). I can assure you this was a perfectly friendly invitation because we felt bad that she always ate alone (though, I’ll admit we were also curious to find out her story). She declined. My friend then mentioned that she looked too young to be in college (an inappropriate comment in my opinion, but he didn’t mean in that way…I think he thought she was some sort of child prodigy or something). She responded that she was in fact 19 years old, but had a developmental disease where she would never mature, and that she didn’t like to talk about it because she attracted “weirdos.” The insinuation was that she considered my friend to be in this category. So that was the end of their conversation. So, my question is, what was her likely condition? “Never mature” seems unlikely. Perhaps she meant “slow to mature”? Also, her comment about attracting “weirdos” intrigues me. Would a person with pedophilic tendencies, in the traditional sense, actually desire a relationship with a person who looked like a child, but with the mind of and adult? I think “no”…but it’s become a point of contention in a recent discussion after I repeated this story. Others say that this would be, perhaps, the most desirable situation- the “best of both worlds” if you will (not for her, but for the pedophile). I think this is totally off base. Sorry, I know this is a weird set of questions. Ditch ∝ 22:07, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a type of Growth hormone deficiency? --Jayron32 22:13, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I have known people who had the physical appearance of a middle-schooler in their mid-20s, without any disease to blame it on. If you had a situation like that, combined with a growth defect that caused a very small/slight stature, that could easily produce phenotype you describe. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Being of small stature myself I tend to attract others similarly built, and I have two friends who are very similar in height (4ft 9in) and looks. One is physiologically normal, the other has many medical conditions, one of which is Hashimoto's thyroiditis which she has had from a child. So "her likely condition" could be anything - or nothing. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Kallmann's Syndrome, perhaps? Tevildo (talk) 10:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

A related case, though more extreme, is Brooke Greenberg, who, though 20 years old, still looks and acts like a toddler. Doctors just call her medical situation "Syndrome X." Nicky Freeman, mentioned in Brooke's article, the 40-year-old Australian man who still looks like a boy, may be closer to what you're talking about. 20.137.2.50 (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Turner syndrome causes girls to mature very slowly, I know a 16 year old who looks about 9-10. She is short, prepubescent and has a few distinctive facial features. Roger (talk) 19:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)