6. Carter photograph vs. my photo.
There has been some question as to whether my Joseph Smith photo is from a Carter Glass Print Negative. I wanted to point out some of the subtle differences to the blog readers. The Carter print shows Joseph with a distance between his ear on the left side and his collar. My photo shows an intersection between the ear and collar. How could you paint this onto a negative? It is clear that the Carter print is from the RLDS painting; I believe most would agree with this. The RLDS painting is a beautiful work and is quite accurate to the photo but still there are many differences.
The Carter print shows Joseph with a very straight, tapered nose; an enhanced photo shows that his nose was crooked and possibly broken.
The eyes…I think they tell everything. Carter’s photograph shows Joseph’s eyes even in size, and the one on the right side is slightly upturned. My photo shows a lower eye top lid on the right side.
(You can click on the photos to enlarge them in another screen.)
While meeting with Bill Slaughter from the LDS Church History Library, I asked him if he had ever seen Joseph with a crooked nose. He said that he had not but wanted to go back and review more information.
A point that was brought up during the photo examination was that if the photograph had been derived from a one-dimensional painting negative, the entire image of Joseph would have been in focus. Instead, the focus is primarily on his face and eyes; just a daguerreotype photo would have been taken in the 1840’s.
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