Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford Photographing Fairies (Classic)
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Dec 26, 2025 Discover how Elsie and Frances staged iconic fairy photographs that captivated even Sherlock Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Their clever tricks, like retouching and double exposures, baffled photographic experts and mystics for decades. Despite media mockery and skepticism, the girls' hoax endured, stemming from social pressures and a fear of humiliation. Eventually, Elsie's confession revealed it was all a practical joke, leaving a lasting legacy in the realms of belief and deception.
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The Cottingley Beck Photographs
- Two girls, Elsie and Frances, took photographs they claimed showed fairies by a beck in Cottingley.
- The images astonished believers and drew attention from Edward Gardner and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Retouching Distorts Forensic Evidence
- Post-processing by Harold Snelling created sharper prints that misled later experts about the originals.
- Snelling's retouching meant subsequent analysis examined altered images, not the untouched negatives.
A Forensic Photographer Reopens The Case
- Geoffrey Crawley of the British Journal of Photography investigated decades later and obtained the original camera.
- He concluded the primitive camera couldn't have produced the sharp fairy wings seen in published prints.