C7P Polish Artillery Tractor Photo Enigma

[Steve Jones]

Hi Everyone

As my latest project draws to a close, there has been a photo that is amongst all my research photos that is bugging me. This is the correct picture



Now this is the same photo but in reverse/back to front??



How has this been achieved? Has a negative been flipped and made into a photo. Is there a special name/term for achieving this effect?. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Happy modelling everyone

[Tim Marlow]

Very easy to flip a picture digitally Steve. Back in the non digital age it could still be reasonably easy to do this, even with moving film stock. Look at any episode of “The Great War” from the early seventies and the Brits all attack one way (left to right I think) and the Germans attack in the other direction…..trouble is, most of the German troops seem to be left handed! The film stock was flipped to suit the production.

[Steve Jones]

Well I never knew that Tim. It seems a strange thing to do as obviously the image/film is incorrect, but I'm sure they had their reasons for doing it. I shall keep an eye out for more examples

[Tim Marlow]

I think I need to source that documentary and watch it again, i may actually have dreamt that :tongue-out3:
its something I remember readings years ago, but I haven’t seen It fir many years. I remember it being superb though….very much the forerunner of World at war. The opening sequence is absolutely haunting! I bet it wouldn’t be used now, might upset someone.

[Guest]

How has this been achieved? Has a negative been flipped and made into a photo.

If it was done pre-digitally, then yes, somebody just did something like put a negative the wrong way round when exposing the photo.

If digitally, then it’s even easier: just open the photo in any program that can do even basic image manipulation and turn it. If you’re on a Mac, then the Preview application can do it; on Windows, the Photos app can too; etc.

Is there a special name/term for achieving this effect?

It’s horizontally mirrored or flipped.

I'm sure they had their reasons for doing it.

I saw a documentary about the making of The Great War once, and the reason was stated in it: so that viewers would easily be able to tell which side they were looking at. The idea was, I think, that because the Allies were basically going west to east, they should go left to right on the screen, and the Germans the other way.

[Dave Ward]

Laterally inverted is the technical term, with Photoshop & other digital image programmes, flipping photos is very easy - in the old days, printing a negative in reverse was used. It can sometimes be used for aesthetic reasons, ie someone pointing can look better pointing left or right in relation to the other photos on a page. In film documentaries, flipping the negatives can give you the impression that there is more film than there actually is!
Dave

[Tim Marlow]

If it was done pre-digitally, then yes, somebody just did something like put a negative the wrong way round when exposing the photo.

If digitally, then it’s even easier: just open the photo in any program that can do even basic image manipulation and turn it. If you’re on a Mac, then the Preview application can do it; on Windows, the Photos app can too; etc.


It’s horizontally mirrored or flipped.


I saw a documentary about the making of The Great War once, and the reason was stated in it: so that viewers would easily be able to tell which side they were looking at. The idea was, I think, that because the Allies were basically going west to east, they should go left to right on the screen, and the Germans the other way.

So I wasn’t going mad then. I had convinced myself I had made that up! I think I read it in an Open University history text giving reasons why photographic evidence wasn’t as bombproof as people sometimes assume.

[GerryW]

Changing a photo round with a PC is really simple, I used a 'flipped' photo as a backdrop on the last dio - could have left it, but for some reason I wanted to have the 'climb' left to right - and I'd never accept a photo as evidence of anything - I've played too much with them myself!

[Steve-the-Duck]

Can I just ask tho' Steve. Are you going to build a C7P? If yes, I'm there.
It's on my list as a 28mm conversion ('easy' with separate tracks), but is there a 1/72 kit around for 'reference'?

[Steve Jones]

Tim, Jakko, Gerry, Dave Many thanks for your replies. It has certainly opened my eyes to something that is now obviuosly quite common place and easy to do. As they say you learn something new every day so thank you for that.

Chris - The build is nearly complete and I am just finishing off the oil work at the moment. I have placed a couple of updates on the "Whats on the Bench" thread. However I have five extensive videos on my site of the 1/35 scale model by Mirage, so if you just put Steve Jones Scale Modelling site into your search engine they are easy to find with lots of reference material. My good friend Saul Garcia has uploaded all our reference photos on face book and can be found on the 7TP Polish Tank FBook page.

C7P FBook Reference Photos.

As for the 1/72 scale there is a kit by Mirage and Modelkrak and there are a few build blogs on the internet using these smaller kits. However if you want any information on the C7P just PM me.

[Steve-the-Duck]

Steve - Cheers

[Guest]

For completeness’ sake, let me demonstrate. I opened Steve’s first picture in Preview, the default image viewer on Macs:

[ATTACH]436702[/ATTACH]

Then clicked the menu Tools and the option Flip Horizontal:

[ATTACH]436699[/ATTACH]

And, after a little animation that shows the photo being mirrored, I end up with:

[ATTACH]436701[/ATTACH]

It won’t be vastly different in most other programs that can do this — you most likely just need to browse the menus for options named “Flip”, “Mirror” or similar.

[GerryW]

The usual 'give-away' are any letters or numbers in the picture, as they will likely show incorrectly