THE MYTH OF PROVENANCE

In Identifying Faces in Photographs

by Joelle Steele

When clients first contact me to identify a face in a photograph they often bombard me with a lot of background information about that person. They call it provenance or family history; I call it unessential. I do face and ear analysis, so I am only interested in identifying faces in photos – putting a name to them. The face itself is everything to me. If it doesn't match a known and authentic photograph of the person in question, it isn't that person. Period. All the provenance and history in the world does not and cannot make a face in an antique photo be that of a particular person if measuring the bones of the face proves it isn't.

Common sense and logic spell it out when it comes to the provenance of old photographs of people. It all relates back to the who, where, when, what, how, and why questions on which journalists rely when building their stories. Provenance answers all of those questions until the need to identify a person comes up. That's the "who" question, and in making a positive identification of a face, that's the only question that matters to me, and it should be the only question that matters to you. Here's why:

WHERE A PHOTO WAS TAKEN

A photo taken by a particular photographer in a particular city or town is completely irrelevant to establishing the identity of a face in a photo. Many people had their photographs taken, especially towards the end of the 19th century when photography was becoming readily available and affordable to so many people. Some photographers did a booming business, especially ones who were in large cities. Even if a person was known to have been photographed previously by a specific photographer doesn't mean that a photo with that photographer's information stamped on it is of the same person. It could be a relative who lived in the area and resembles the person in question. It could be ... anyone. Knowing the photographer or photo studio is not a substitute for analyzing the bones and features of a face.

WHERE A PHOTO WAS FOUND

It was in Jesse James' nephew's son-in-law's uncle's late wife's photo album? Doesn't help identify a face, even if the late wife was Jesse's best friend, lover, sister, child, etc. The problem with family albums – and I've identified hundreds of faces in family albums for clients – is that there is about a 50% chance that family members will share a resemblance, but the other 50% won't. And, family albums are often repositories for photos of friends, neighbors, and relatives by marriage. In short, anyone can show up in someone else's family album, regardless of whether or not that person was related to the album owners or even knew them well. In doing my own family genealogy, I interviewed former neighbors and friends of my family members. I found photos of my maternal grandparents in several of their albums. So, a photo's appearance in a particular album doesn't help identify the face.

WHEN AND HOW A PHOTO WAS MADE

Unless a photograph has to be dated – and even then the photographic process is not always reliable – this is not relevant to identifying a face in a photo. Just because it is a tintype taken of a bearded man in a Civil War era uniform outside of a tent doesn't mean it's Ulysses Grant or Robert E. Lee or any other general of that time who sported a beard. Even Daguerreotypes are not reliable for dating a photo. While they became available in 1839 and faded in use as faster methods were developed, the Daguerreotype camera and process were still in use as late as the 1920s. Dates on photos can certainly help date them, but not always, since some dates represent an order date for reproductions of a photo rather than the date it was taken. But a date cannot establish the identity of a face.

WHAT THE PERSON IS WEARING

Clothing can sometimes help date a photo too, but like photographic processes, it is not always reliable or accurate. Not all people were fashion conscious in the old days. They didn't usually have a lot of clothes, they kept what they did have for a long time, and they often wore hand-me-downs. Women and men tended, as they still do today, to wear their hair in the same style for years on end, unaware or unconcerned that times have changed and they are pitifully out of style. A person in a photo who happens to be wearing clothes similar to those of someone else will not help identify their face.

WHY WAS THE PHOTO TAKEN

Unless the identity of the person in the photo is already known, this is also unessential information as far as establishing identity is concerned. Why did anyone have their photo taken? Special occasions, passports, criminal mug shots – could be any number of reasons. Knowing why their photo was taken will not identify their face as belonging to a particular person. That's a job for a facial features analyst.

SUMMARY

Before you get excited over the provenance of a photo, remember that the identity of the face in that photo is what is important. It's the only thing that really matters. Whether you've got a photo of a potential family member or historic figure, if it doesn't match another known photo of the person you think it is, then all that provenance is just a lot of useless hoo-hah until someone figures out who the face really belongs to. The only way to do that is to analyze the facial features and compare them to a known and authentic photo of the person in question. Once you have a 100% face match, you can back it up with all the provenance you have.