Earliest Lincoln Photo

[Houmes]

(02-07-2015 04:08 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  I'm sure most everyone on this forum has seen the daguerreotype that is purported by Albert Kaplan to be an 1841 image of Abraham Lincoln. I have never given it much thought in the past because, to my eye, there isn't anything more than a very slight resemblance to Lincoln. Today I came across Mr. Kaplan's website that claims the photo has been definitely authenticated as Lincoln. Dave Taylor and I have discussed photo identification in general before and he and I agree...research is one thing but when studying photographs the image has to look like the person it is supposed to be.

What do you think?

For a fascinating analysis of this image, get a copy of Face to Face: Analysis and Comparison of Facial Features to Authenticate Identities of People in Photographs by Joelle Steele. She got tired of using face recognition software (only compares a limited number of facial features) and about 25 years ago developed a system comparing 100 different facial features. She has an entire chapter on the Kaplan image.