[W&B] Photo Identification Help

[mathew_brady at msn.com]

I have been going through photo identification processes of my own.  See http://www.fiberq.com/cam/piercephotos/index.htm<http://www.fiberq.com/cam/piercephotos/index.htm> for 7 side by side heads of my great-grandfather ranging from about 10 to 65 years old, to give an example of photos taken of one person at different times from different directions.  I've been having a time trying to tell unidentified photos of close relatives apart, and have been fooled many times into thinking two photos were of the same person, but they turned out with more data to be a sibling or cousin.  What I have been doing is aligning the eyes to horizontal, then making the distance from the top of the heads to the bottom of the chins the same by trial and error.  If the resulting heads are placed on different layers in photoshop, then one layer can be made 50% transparent and superimposed over the other.  That way, you can compare the features of both heads more precisely than when they are side by side, and see if the interpupilary distance, the space between nose and mouth, where the ears are, ear shape, etc. match.  When aging, sometimes the mouth to nose distance shortens due to tooth loss and nose growth.  There is a show on Discovery or PBS about recreating Washington's 19 year old image from his familiar but toothless old man images.  Having said that, I still think that the nose on the engraving is fat and Roman, while that in the photo is thin and aquiline; the chin on the photo looks significantly narrower than the engraving; the ears are different; and the eyes on the photo may be further apart.  I tried the superimposing thing, but it doesn't seem to work so well when one of the images is an engraving.  I can't really see both images at once, as I can with two photos. 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Benjamin Ehrman<mailto:woodcameras at comcast.net> 
  To: Collectors of 19th Century Cameras &amp;Photographica<mailto:woodandbrass at kjsl.com> 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 8:42 PM
  Subject: Re: [W&B] Photo Identification Help


  On 2/21/07 Rob McElroy wrote:


  >Don't keep us in suspense too long.


  I appreciate the opinions that pretty much confirm what I intellectually
  believed, but emotionally didn't want to believe.  I "want" them to be the same
  person.

  The engraving is of August Semmendinger.

  http://mywebpages.comcast.net/woodcameras/ASemmendinger2.jpg<http://mywebpages.comcast.net/woodcameras/ASemmendinger2.jpg>

  The photo was discovered in the plate holder of a Semmendinger stereo camera
  (patent model) that's in the Smithsonian collection.  

  I have been in contact with one his great-grandchildren off and on for a couple
  of years who has been trying to find out any information on him.  The sad part
  is that they have no photographs of A. Semmendinger.  Seems kind of odd, doesn't
  it, for someone that was in the photographic industry.

  Best,
  Ben 
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