The Strange Case Of NASA Employee Ed Carlson

[Shank]

Unfortunately for us NASA photo department employee Ed Carlson is dead.  But he left to the world a set of 10 special Apollo 11 prints that were found among his personal posessions, made at some point during his life.  On each of those prints were two smudge marks on each print.  Ed Carlson is no longer breathing heavy enough to to tell us how the smudges got on the prints.  It might have been an interresting story, but what is more intriguing is what Ed Carlson... or somebody... decided to do about the smudges.  Whoever it was who made the decision, decided to retouch them out using various period techniques such as airbrushing, overlays and double exposures. 

Before you read any further I encourage you to go to the Oregon L5 Society site and look at the photos in their original state for yourselves.  A drop down menu at the top of the page gives access to high res. TIFF files for each photo.  They're about 10 MB each. 

http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5a11pix.html?redirect=%2Flbrt%2Fimages%2Fapollotif%2F405868.tif

First up is the pair of smudges from the one photo Ed Carlson never tried to retouch. We were very lucky he left this one in it's original state.  You can see two white smudges at the top right of the photo.  One runs paralell to the top edge, the other diagonaly and downward. 



For whatever reason those same smudges wound up on all the prints Ed? made.  So here's what Ed? tried to do about it.   



It looks like a pretty typical airbrush job.  A fairly good one and not easily noticable until you bump up gamma with modern photo enhancing software. 

Both together.  The smudged areas and the airbrushed masks line up quite well.

 

Another technique, overlays... or are they double exposures?  No matter, they cover the smudge marks but you can see them if you're looking hard enough.  Stalin probably wouldn't have considered this good work. 



One more, another overlay or double exposure. 



Only the bootprint photo of the 10 in the collection show no signs of an attempt to remove at least some smudging.  Take a look at them and see if you can figure out how he fixed the rest.   

It is unknown why Ed Carlson? made these retouched photos.  As far as I have been able to determine, none of those marks existed on any set of old Apollo photos but this one.  Though I have seen some very old prints with similar hazy casts and odd colors in the sky areas similar to this set.  That makes me believe these were mass produced in runs and handed to the press and publishers and possibly circulated internaly to NASA personell who needed them very early after A11 return to earth.   

With Ed dead,  we can only make a few conclusions for a certainty.  First, that somebody was retouching Apollo 11 prints, likely just for practice.  Those photos wound up in the hands of Ed Carlson who worked at NASA supposedly in the photography department.  Ed thought they were important enough that he brought them home and kept them until the day he died.  In any event it is going to be much harder to claim that such things cannot be done and never have been done by NASA employees.

[Littleenki]

Many are at the top..is it possible he had taped them to a pegboard or clipboard to display them in his office? Those marks look like tape damage to me but I could be wrong.

Just a guess.

[Amaterasu]

You wouldn't have the consistency of shape and placement if it was tape...

[robomont]

i saw some photos on a show last night and they used razor blades to cut out anomylies.
they would get lazy and cut out one pic with other photos underneath.
so then the photos below would all have razor streaks going at different angles on each of the photos.

not saying it true but thats what i saw.

i almost brought the show up on prc because of the moon stuff but it was a small part of the show.

maybe after zorg gets some mula we can build our own giant telescope or send our own sattelite to the moon and crack this  thing open.

[Pimander]

You wouldn't have the consistency of shape and placement if it was tape...

You would have if it was the pegs used to hang up the prints to dry.  The same shaped smudges would be made at the top by the same shaped pegs.

[Amaterasu]

You would have if it was the pegs used to hang up the prints to dry.  The same shaped smudges would be made at the top by the same shaped pegs.

I'm guessing pegs and tape are different, yes?  I meant tape specifically.

[Pimander]

I'm guessing pegs and tape are different, yes?  I meant tape specifically.

Yes, I know what you meant.  Specifically, I meant you would get the same shapes with the same shaped pegs but, I agree that you would not get the same shapes with tape.

Comprende?

[ArMaP]

Just a question, for which I couldn't find an answer: was he really a NASA employee?

[Amaterasu]

Yes, I know what you meant.  Specifically, I meant you would get the same shapes with the same shaped pegs but, I agree that you would not get the same shapes with tape.

Comprende?

Si.

[1Worldwatcher]

Another possibility is that these are adhesive marks from taking the taped pictures down and then stacking them without removing holding tape/adhesive. Very interesting, anything new into this line of discussion is openly welcomed for us insightful like minded folks here, another thing is the apparent stars in the back-round, which raises another point of discussion over this matter entirely.

1WW

[zorgon]

You are all missing the point...

The POINT is that ANY NASA employee can edit images for what ever reason

Today it's a smudge, tomorrow it's a hidden moon base

[1Worldwatcher]

You are all missing the point...

How?

The POINT is that ANY NASA employee can edit images for what ever reason

I knew this as well.

Today it's a smudge, tomorrow it's a hidden moon base

As seen in many of the NASA released info.

One question "Who is NASA photo department employee Ed Carlson?"

All things considered, and kicking my curiosity "How do you know what I am thinking or perceiving at any given conjecture?"

Was a point too be made, open discussion. Either way, things you mentioned were the first on my thoughts, guess I will have too start putting everything into verbal acknowledgment.

1WW

[ArMaP]

The POINT is that ANY NASA employee can edit images for what ever reason

From what I could see, it looks like the point is that anyone can say someone else was a NASA employee just because he had copies of NASA photos...

[Shank]

According to the Oregon L5 site those photos came from Carlson was a NASA employee.  I wish I lived closer to Houston.  I'd be making trips there all the time to ask questions like that, and of course see some of the stuff they have.   

[starwarp2000]

Trouble is, all the 'original' Apollo Era Images were 'ordered' to be destroyed.
So what you are getting now is a mix and match of 'doctored' photos, whose frame numbers don't even match.
Good luck