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First Special Service Force colorized portrait


Eric Queen
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Note that he is wearing the CANADA disc and crossed arrows on the same side.

 

In trying to identify him, and looking through hundreds of ID photos the closest I could come up with was R.L.Wilson from 6-1 (below). What do you guys think?

R L Wilson colorized X.jpg

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manayunkman

Whats going on with the right side ear in the ID'd photo?

 

Looks like there is a chip in it.

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BILL THE PATCH

Looks like it was chewed, war wound perhaps, doesn't look like that in first photo.

 

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

 

 

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Could be the same man. However the damage to his ear doesn't make much sense as the photos couldn't have been taken to far apart from each other. But you never know.

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manayunkman

I have trouble getting past the eyes and the mouth.

 

Color photo has flat top eyes and a thinner upper lip.

 

The color photo has elongated ears.

 

The little piece of flesh between the nostrils known as the columella sticks out further in the color photo.

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Colorized photos are often touched up or inhanced.They were hand colorized as I understand it so there maybe anomalies and not be true rendition of a photo.The "artistic" interpretation.Seen several colorized uniform portraits where the ribbon colors are not really true to life.

 

 

Look what they do now with air brushing and digital work.

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Thanks for all of the responses and inputs. I appreciate it. I had never noticed the anomaly with his ear before. Not sure it if is actually that way or some issue with the negative, etc.

 

I guess I am still on the fence on this one. The one thing which would lead me to believe it is NOT him is the fact that the man is wearing the CANADA disc in the first photo yet Wilson was from Livermore, KY

 

Just could not find anyone else who looked close in all the ID photos.

 

Either way I think it is a cool photo showing the disc in wear.

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Eric,

I think the anomaly on the black and white is related to the printing of the image and not actually on the guy's ear.

 

That said, when I used to do a lot of photo identification in the daguerreian world (every one with a military-themed daguerreotype seems to want it to be an early image of a later confederate general!), a forensics expert taught me to always look at the structure of the ears: the curves, the indentations, the overall shape of the ear, and in particular, the lobes. He maintained that ears are all different and just as reliable as finger prints. Not sure about that, but, there are 7 billion people and no two are alike, so there is a good chance, no two pairs of ears are the same.

 

I really think that ears in the two portraits are extremely similar. As Doyler said regarding the colorized photo, you can't trust a colorized image at all for facial details. Dad taught me how to colorize images (using his oils from the late-1930s) when I was a kid. I remember him saying that colorizing photos was one way you could really improve a person's looks!

 

FWIW,

 

JAG

 

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manayunkman

If you ask me I would say the guy in the Black & White is the better looking of the two.

 

The color photo guy looks a bit weaselly.

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