Robert Johnson Photo Questioned
Date:
02/16/2013 Contributor:
After writing about this picture a couple of weeks ago, I heard via e-mail and Facebook from several authoritative readers who deny that it is indeed Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines. Some questioned the accuracy of the forensics report by Lois Gibson of the Houston Police Department, others based their doubts on the clothing, arguing that the man on the right is wearing a zoot suit which didn't come into fashion until the early '40's. Johnson died in 1938.
From the moment I first saw the picture several years ago, I didn't so much question that it was Johnson as I did the identification of the other man as Shines. This man looks strikingly different from the Johnny Shines I saw in the '70's and '80's, which is also the timeframe for most of the photos we have of the great bluesman. But Shines ran with Johnson at various times, and he gave some credence to the possibility that this is the two of them when he told an interviewer that he and Robert were photographed in 1937 by a woman named Johnnie Mae Crowder for a local newspaper in Hughes, Arkansas.
If that photo is still in existence, this apparently isn't it. Be that as it may, Getty Images accepted this "third photo" of Johnson from the Johnson estate , and that's what made the news on February 1.
Comments
Third RJ Photo
As a Photographer and RJ lover, I've been having a close look at the photo.
I've concluded that it's a composite photo for the following reasons:
The background top right is a mirror image of the background top left. The right hand figure's clothes all button up the wrong way.
Men generally sit for the Camera with their right side towards the lens. This is not a rule, but having photographed hundreds of men, it's what they do.
The lighting is impossible. Also the man on the right is sitting on an invisible box.
The figure on the right HAS BEEN REVERSED.
I have separated the photos in photoshop and roughly bodged in the missing bits and come up with two credible studio portraits of individual men. The lighting looks more convincing this way around. In the "group" photo, light from one figure doesn't seem to fall on the other. i.e. where is the shadow of the guitar headstock ? Why is RJ's Guitar not lit by the light which is coming from the lower right which is lighting JS's pants so well ??
And why is a great Guitarist posing with a junk guitar with no strings ?
Here are my results:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/nationaldavey/Composite_zps065631...
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/nationaldavey/Composite2_zps8035b773.jpg
This was the intermediate stage:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/nationaldavey/Robert_zps425facb3.jpg
I'm not saying it isn't RJ or JS but the photo is not a single unmanipulated image. Cheers, David
Yes the photo is a photoshop
Yes the photo is a photoshop cleanup of the original. In the original you can tell the difference in the background which is not mirrored.
Alleged third RJ photo
David,
You may not want to say it, but I will: this photo is not of Robert Johnson or Johnny Shines.
I don't know much about photography or Photoshop, but I've spent the last 30-plus years in Chicago as a serious blues fan, researcher, writer, collector producer and musician. And I don't know of a single knowledgeable, credible source that believes this is a photo of RJ or Johnny Shines. Not one.
This scam is being put forth for strictly financial reasons. And because most people don't know any better, they're falling for it. But that's exactly what it is: a scam.
Scott
The "Robert Johnson & Johnny Shines" photo
How likely is it that "Robert Johnson" wore British ties? US ties have the stripes going in the opposite direction (see http://www.intelligentanswers.co.uk/index.php?topic=2595.0, for example).
Johnson / Shines photo
It seems to me that the photo is actually backwards. The buttons on the white jacket are on the left and all men's suits have the buttons on the right. I thought of that when I read a comment about the stripes going the wrong way. It also apears that the man in the white suit has his foot on a box. If he were partially seated then both legs would be bent or the right leg would be forward more than is shown in the photo. As for the light, whomever took the photo had the light at an awkward angle, which explains why the shadow of the guitar neck falls on the inner right arm of the gentleman in white.