Since the invention of photography, people have used their cameras to capture some of the greatest moments in human history. We are baffled by creativity and the sheer science behind being in the right place at the right time. Interestingly enough, photographers have managed to capture some extremely rare moments in time. Many of them are inexplicable with fascinating stories to go along with them. Are they authentic or altered? Are the stories behind them legitimate tales? We may never find out about some of them. Of the estimated one trillion photos that we take every year, we have concluded that these are among the most mysterious, mind blowing, and fascinating within history.
Alex Gardner’s
Iconic War Photos
Alex Gardner was one of the most famous
photographers ever. He took the shots of the Civil War, the Lincoln
conspirators being hanged, and even the portrait of Lincoln before his
assassination. When he died, most of his original work along with the negatives
vanished. They were rediscovered 1893 which was iconic in helping us visualize
the aftermath of war. Sometime later, those same famous photos and negatives
vanished again.
Possibly Vladimir
Putin
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan made a trip
to Moscow and went to visit Red Square. While shaking hands with a young boy,
the president had his picture snapped by White House photographer, Peter Souza.
Souza insists that the blond, nerdy looking nearby is none other than a
young Vladimir Putin. Who later became
one of the most famous KGB spies ever.
The Khmer Rouge
Victims
The most devastating account of Cambodian
genocide was under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. S-21 was a former school converted
into an interrogation center that held as many as 17,000 people within four
years. Less than 10 people survived this center. The captives were tortured for
days, beaten to death and thrown in mass graves. About 6,000 photographs have
surfaced of the victims, but nearly every photo was separated from its record
folder. The majority of the identities are still unknown.
The First Man Ever
Photographed
In 1838, Louis Daguerre was experimenting with
his daguerreotype in Paris and snapped a photo of the street. It took seven
minutes for the exposure process to complete. Coincidentally, a man stopped to
have his shoes shined and It just so happened to have taken the same amount of
time to have them finished. The process took so long that anything moving
became invisible. The only thing standing still was the man seen and we still
don’t know who he was.
The Alleged CSS
Georgia Photo
A Confederate warship called the CSS Georgia
was thought to have never been photographed. Sometime in the 1980’s, John
Potter claimed to have seen a photograph of it at a yard sale. He couldn’t
afford the asking price but believed it was real and very priceless. The photo,
along with the owner, moved and was never heard from again. It became so
legendary that the Army Corps of Engineers launched a drive in 2014 to help find
it. Then, in April 2015, John Potter admitted to the Associated Press that he
lied about the entire incident and that the CSS Georgia photo never existed.
After interviewing a friend of Potter’s, the AP’s report claimed that Potter
has the photograph and may be pulling an elaborate double hoax to gain a higher
asking price.
Wounded Soldier
A photograph of a Republican soldier falling
after being shot in the Spanish Civil War, is one of Robert Capa’s most famous
of that era. People have wondered for years whether or not it is authentic or
if it was staged.
The Date of The
First Color Photo
In 1851, Rev. Levi Hill, claimed to have
discovered a breakthrough in photography by creating color pictures. Using a
device known as a hillotype, he claimed to have 45 color photos. As
Daguerreotype experts grew tired of waiting for him to reveal the photos, he
was assumed a fraud. He then mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from
again. Everyone thought it was a hoax until decades later, when experts concluded
that the specimens were legit.
The Famous
Skyscraper Guys
This is one of the most famous photographs
ever. We still wonder though, who took it and who are these men? For years, it
was believed to have been taken by Lewis Hine and later credited to Rockefeller
Center’s photographic director, Charles C. Ebbets. As for the men dangling
miles high? In 2012 two of them were identified as Joseph Eckner and Joe
Curtis. Later, another two were tentatively identified as Matty O’Shaughnessy
and Patrick Glynn.
Grim Sleeper Victim
Indentities
The Grim Sleeper is one of the most famous
serial killers in Southern California’s history. He killed at least 11 women
over the span of 25 years and believed to have killed dozens more, as police
found over 180 photos of women when he was captured. Lonnie Franklin, Jr. was
finally caught in 2009. Los Angeles Police Detectives have identified all but
38 of the women in the photos, who seem to be drugged, unconscious or deceased.
The Margate
Vacationing Family
This story is a charming mystery of a British
family’s vacation in pictures. In 2015, the National Museum of Scotland
acquired a collection of Victorian-era photos. Many of them featured the same
family on vacation in the Kent town of Margate. There were photos of them over
the span of several years. You can see the progression of growth of the
children and of the family itself. It is like looking at a timeline of a family
with no identity.
Cooper Family Photo
In the 1950’s, the Cooper family bought a
house in Texas and took this photo their first night there. The father snapped
the photo of the mother, grandmother, and two children. When the photo was
developed they saw, to their horror, a body hanging from the ceiling. Was this
a ghost of a deceased former tenant of the house? Had something horrible
happened there? No one knew. The authenticity of this photo has been widely
debated over the years. We may never know.
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