₦airaland Forum

It’s estimated we humans take around one
trillion photos every single year. While the
majority of them are likely either selfies or
pornography (or some pleasing combination of
the two), not every picture is so easily
classified. Some are even deeply mysterious.
Here are 10 photographic mysteries that have
left the whole world baffled.


10 The Identities Of The Skyscraper Men
It’s one of the most iconic images in history. A
group of men sit on a steel girder, hundreds of
feet above New York, calmly eating their lunch.
It’s been reproduced more times than every
single other image on this list
combined . . . and we don’t know anything
about it.
This lack of knowledge includes the answer to
seemingly simple questions like “who took it? ”
Though the picture’s a modern icon, its
author’s identity remains unknown. For years,
the shot was credited to Lewis Hine, but recent
research says there’s no way Hine could have
been responsible. The most likely candidate is
the Rockefeller Center’s old photographic
director, Charles C. Ebbets, but it could just
have easily been PR men Thomas Kelley or
William Leftwich or somebody else altogether.
But even if we’ve solved that mystery, there’s
still the question of its subjects’ identities. Like
the photographer, most of the men are
completely anonymous . It wasn’t until 2012
that two were named definitively as Joseph
Eckner and Joe Curtis, with another two
tentatively identified as Matty O’Shaughnessy
and Patrick “Sonny” Glynn. That still leaves
seven guys who never bothered to tell anyone
they were in one of the 20th century’s greatest
pictures. As more time passes, it’s becoming
less and less likely that their names will ever be
known.

ok

9 The Identity Of The First Man Photographed
In 1838, a resident of Paris stopped to have his shoes shined on the Boulevard du Temple and accidentally made history. At that precise moment, Louis Daguerre was experimenting with his daguerreotype on a nearby rooftop and snapped a picture of the street. It took seven minutes to complete the exposure, which was so long that all the traffic became invisible. But our Parisian man just happened to spend those seven minutes standing still. As a result, he became the first photographed human in history. Beyond that, we know nothing about him. Literally nothing. Regarding his life, looks, occupation, income, ideals, family life, and origins, we’re completely in the dark. We don’t even know for certain that he was a Parisian or that he was having his shoes shined. Some have suggested the image actually shows a man standing at a water pump . There’s even a school of thought that says he isn’t alone in the photograph. While the supposed shoeshine boy moved too quick to be captured, a blurred image at a window might indicate that the customer shared his unwitting honor with another unknown soul.

8 When The First Color Photograph Was Taken

In 1861, Thomas Sutton and James Clerk
Maxwell took three shots of a tartan ribbon
through green, red, and blue filters. They then
combined them to create a single image. Color
photography was born. Unless, that is, it had
already begun a decade earlier.
In winter 1851, the Daguerreian Journal, the
world’s first professional photography
magazine, received a letter. Written by the Rev.
Levi Hill, it claimed a breakthrough with color
pictures. Using a device known as a hillotype,
the reverend had already captured 45 color
specimens. The letter ended with a promise
that Hill would unveil his prototype soon, along
with an exhibition of his work.
Daguerreotype experts went nuts. It was the
equivalent of hearing that some hick had just
perfected virtual reality in his basement. But
then a funny thing happened. Hill kept pushing
back the date for his big reveal. He kept
pushing it and pushing it until everyone gave up
and called him a faker. Then he vanished into
seclusion and was never heard from again. For
decades after, everyone assumed he was simply
a hoaxer.
Only, it might not be so simple. In the early
21st century, a group of experts analyzed the
Smithsonian’s collection of hillotypes and found
faint traces of color . They also found evidence
that some of the slides had been altered by
hand but maybe not all of them. It’s now
impossible to say for certain whether Hill really
did fake the lot or whether he honestly took the
first color photographs. Maybe we will never
know.

7 What Happened To Alex Gardner’s Civil War Photos
The Civil War the first widely photographed conflict in history. It forever changed the way we viewed war, reporting, and images of death. A lot of this is thanks to one man: Alex Gardner. Even if you don’t know Gardner’s name, you know his work. It was Gardner who took the shots of the dead at Antietam, the shots of the Lincoln conspirators being hanged, and the iconic portrait of a pre-assassination Lincoln. He took more and better pictures than anyone else on the battlefields, even as credit for the images went to his employer. When he died, many of his original negatives went missing. They could have even been lost forever had another photographer not tracked them down in 1893. The rediscovered photos were hailed as one of the most important photographic finds in history. Then they promptly vanished again . To this day, we still have no idea where they went. A few may have made their way into museum collections, but the vast majority seem to have vanished into the ether. Some of the most valuable 19th-century negatives are still out there somewhere, now waiting to be rediscovered for the second time.

6 The CSS Georgia Hoax
An ironclad Confederate warship launched in 1863 and scuttled 20 months later to prevent capture, the CSS Georgia was long thought to have never been photographed. Then, in the mid-1980s, John Potter came across what appeared to be a genuine picture of the Georgia at a yard sale. Unable to afford the asking price, he snapped a picture of the photo and sent it to historian friends. They all agreed it had to be the real deal. At this point, the original photo vanished. According to Potter, the man who owned it moved away and disappeared off the face of the Earth. Over the next few years, the picture became legendary. With no blueprints or accurate likenesses of the Georgia known to exist, the photo would be utterly unique. The Army Corps of Engineers even launched a drive in 2014 to help locate it. Then, in April 2015, Potter admitted to the Associated Press that he’d faked the whole thing. It was a hoax image, a way for him to get attention. The CSS Georgia photo had never existed . Or had it? In their report, the AP claimed Potter suggested he might be pulling an elaborate double hoax. A friend of Potter’s also claimed Potter had the real photo and was intending to sell it at a high price. It’s a mystery wrapped in a mystery, and we may never get a straight answer.

6 The CSS Georgia Hoax

An ironclad Confederate warship launched in
1863 and scuttled 20 months later to prevent
capture, the CSS Georgia was long thought to
have never been photographed. Then, in the
mid-1980s, John Potter came across what
appeared to be a genuine picture of the Georgia
at a yard sale. Unable to afford the asking
price, he snapped a picture of the photo and
sent it to historian friends. They all agreed it
had to be the real deal. At this point, the
original photo vanished.
According to Potter, the man who owned it
moved away and disappeared off the face of
the Earth. Over the next few years, the picture
became legendary. With no blueprints or
accurate likenesses of the Georgia known to
exist, the photo would be utterly unique. The
Army Corps of Engineers even launched a drive
in 2014 to help locate it. Then, in April 2015,
Potter admitted to the Associated Press that
he’d faked the whole thing. It was a hoax
image, a way for him to get attention. The CSS
Georgia photo had never existed .
Or had it? In their report, the AP claimed Potter
suggested he might be pulling an elaborate
double hoax. A friend of Potter’s also claimed
Potter had the real photo and was intending to
sell it at a high price. It’s a mystery wrapped in
a mystery, and we may never get a straight
answer.


5 The Mysterious Margate
Family
The unknown Margate family are one of
Britain’s most charming recent mysteries. In
2015, the National Museum of Scotland
acquired a collection of Victorian-era
photographs. Most were random shots of men
in suits and women with stern expressions, but
a small number stood out. Running through the
collection were repeated images of the same
family on vacation in the Kent town of Margate.
As the photographs progressed, they grew older,
the children getting taller and a baby sister
suddenly appearing. It was like flicking through
the story of an entire family—one we know
absolutely nothing about.
The pictures themselves carry no formal
identification, and nothing to give us any clue
as to the people inside them. All we know is
they were taken by a professional photographer
called W. Colder, whose name appears in the
background of one shot. Beyond that, we’re
clueless.
It’s a shame, as the photos really let us into
the lives of this small family. We see them
posed, at rest and at play. We watch their joys,
their lives, and their children’s growth, until
suddenly they stop. Who were they? Why did
they stop going to Margate?

4 The Grim Sleeper Women

A vicious serial killer who preyed on mostly
black women in the Los Angeles area, the Grim
Sleeper is thought to have murdered at least 11
people in 25 years. However, some say the
number is much higher. When current suspect
Lonnie Franklin Jr. (due to be tried this
summer) was arrested, police found over 180
photos of women in his home. Most had
obviously been taken in Franklin’s house or car.
A number appeared to be asleep, or
unconscious, or worse. Chillingly, the Grim
Sleeper’s only known survivor claims she was
photographed in his car right after being shot
and sexually assaulted.
Since the photos were first released in 2010,
police have identified nearly all of the women
shown. However question marks linger over
several them. The LAPD’s official website still
carries a graphic slideshow of 38 unknown
people taken from Franklin’s collection. Some
are ordinary pictures taken in bright daylight
outside his house. Others are far darker. At
least four of the photographed women appear
to be unconscious at best. Another looks like
she’s reacting in stark terror to something
unseen. Not only are these women unknown—
we don’t even know if they’re still alive.

3 The Truth Behind The
Falling Soldier Photo
An image of a Republican soldier falling from a
gunshot wound in the Spanish Civil War, Robert
Capa’s photo is one of the most iconic pictures
of war. It’s also one of the most fiercely
debated. To this day, we have no idea whether
it’s a genuine image or if Capa faked the whole
thing .
The arguments for both sides are compelling. A
2009 analysis by the Spanish daily El Periodico
seemed to pinpoint the location of the photo to
outside the town of Espejo. While Espejo did
receive its fair share of fighting, it wasn’t drawn
into the war until three weeks after the photo
appeared in the press. In addition, a collection
of Capa’s negatives discovered in the mid-’90s
appeared to show other staged pictures taken
at the same time, suggesting his most famous
image may have been staged, too.
On the other hand, experts at the International
Center of Photography still believe the picture
to be genuine. One school of thought claims it
shows a staged photograph that suddenly
turned real when a sniper picked off the posing
soldier. However, this claim contradicts Capa’s
account that the soldier died under machine
gun fire. Until definitive proof emerges either
way, the story behind the war’s most famous
photograph will remain a myst

2 The Tourist In The Reagan Red Square Photo

In 1988, Ronald Reagan made a trip to
Moscow. As part of his visit, he took to Red
Square to meet local Russians. While shaking
hands with a young boy, the president had his
picture snapped by a White House
photographer. Nothing unusual about that. But
then you look at the blond, slightly geeky
tourist watching the encounter. According to
several sources, that man may well be a young
Vladimir Putin .
The link was first suggested in 2009, and it was
immediately shot down by Russia. However, it
has since persisted for several reasons. The
first is that we now know the KGB dressed
some of their agents up as ordinary Russians
and got them to ask Reagan difficult questions .
Putin was a member of the KGB at the time, so
his appearance there wouldn’t be unlikely. The
second reason is that it really does look like a
younger version of the current leader of Russia.
Pete Souza, who took the picture, today insists
that the blond man is a young Putin. For his
part, Putin’s spokespeople have strenuously
denied the encounter, saying he was working in
Dresden at the time. What do you think?


1 The Nameless KhmerRouge Victims

The Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot’s
Khmer Rouge threw up its fair share of horror
stories. None are quite as horrifying as that of
S-21. A former school converted into an
interrogation center, S-21 held as many as
17,000 people during the four years of Pol Pot’s
reign. Less than 10 of them survived . Inmates
were tortured for days on end then driven out
to the countryside, beaten to death, and thrown
in mass graves. The saddest part is we still
don’t know who most of them were.
The guards at S-21 did keep records.
Thousands of photographs have since surfaced
of the prisoners, with more coming in all the
time. Many are now known only by their
pictures. When S-21 was finally abandoned,
nearly every photo was separated from its
folder. Of the 6,000 pictures currently known,
the vast majority feature people who are
unidentified .
Ranging from frightened dissidents, to somber
old men, and young children with tears in their
eyes, the faces are all anonymous. Their
names, their stories, and their lives were all
wiped out. Today, we can only look at their
images and wonder who they were and how the
Khmer Rouge could feel they needed to be
erased from history.

That first picture will drive great fear into the minds of those who have the phobia for height.. really cute and interesting pix non the less...

If you think PhotoShop is a new invention, that pic will make you have a rethink.

Lovely. Some of the pictures aren't showing up however.

nice write up.


those guys in d first pic get mind o

Very Interesting

I love history

pls if dis thing get to front page. don't forget to give me some likes.

I enjoyed this not all these guys posting about red lips or asking if they look like a celebrity(the world is really coming to an end cos some men are unashamedly eroding the difference between men and women)
if not for articles like this I won't be enjoying Nairaland anymore but try to upload all the pictures

Realy Interesting History...those men seated above newyork,#epic...Good job op

Shuuu! They get mind oo.
Make Nl guys take this kain pics na...

prisiluv:
Realy Interesting History...those men seated above newyork,#epic...Good job op

Thank u..

Nice one ooooppo nepaaaaaa

I am so scared of heights, that I am already having chills looking at the first picture

NUMBER 1 [center][/center]
Jesus photograph i don't know who told the photographer that jesus has pink lips and blue eye with long hair. For all we know Jesus might be rocking an afro or sporting waves sef.

omor my mind dey cut for those mystery men oo see the height

jieta:
pls if dis thing get to front page. don't forget to give me some likes.

real men don't beg for likes,they get it naturally.Now watch my likes increase and learn!...winks*

The guys smoking cigarette sha, men I've got big phobia for height. Can't make it to the fifth floor of any building

Okay

Nice post

nanauju:
I love history

I love you.

That first Pic is Epic!!
Thanks Op.

https://41.media.tumblr.com/ae700183a59fc4a638858f3e4ec8e67d/tumblr_np0yaspJGf1tesdtbo1_500.jpg
[img]http://files.vm.ru/photo/vecherka/2015/12/doc6nkshhqr55hx3byiadi_800_480.jpg[/img]