Mystery air-brushing on 1962 Monaco photo
Discussion
Have a butchers at these two photographs of the multi-car crash at the start of the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix: this first shot is lifted from Ivan Rendall's 1993 book Chequered Flag:
Number 2 is from a booklet called 100 Grand Prix Greats from about 1996: clearly it's taken mere seconds after the first pic, from pretty much the same spot (and quite possibly by the same photographer):
But now look closely at the second one: see those 3 Shell signs just above the track 'barrier' - 2 at the extreme left of the shot, and the bigger, solid-looking specimen hanging off the lamp-post vertically above car 8's driver's head, then the Esso sign just above the gap in the 'barrier' towards the left of the shot?
Where are those 4 signs in the first picture??
So either (a) during those few seconds between the 2 photos being taken, some enterprising advertising exec spotted an opportunity and, fast as lightning, got those signs put up 
or (b) someone belonging to a rival oil company doctored that first shot. Suspicion points at BP since their sign is visible in both shots. But they didn't do a good job because they missed the Shell written on the 'barrier' itself.
But did they really get up to such nefarious practices in that golden era of 50 years ago?
Number 2 is from a booklet called 100 Grand Prix Greats from about 1996: clearly it's taken mere seconds after the first pic, from pretty much the same spot (and quite possibly by the same photographer):
But now look closely at the second one: see those 3 Shell signs just above the track 'barrier' - 2 at the extreme left of the shot, and the bigger, solid-looking specimen hanging off the lamp-post vertically above car 8's driver's head, then the Esso sign just above the gap in the 'barrier' towards the left of the shot?
Where are those 4 signs in the first picture??
So either (a) during those few seconds between the 2 photos being taken, some enterprising advertising exec spotted an opportunity and, fast as lightning, got those signs put up or (b) someone belonging to a rival oil company doctored that first shot. Suspicion points at BP since their sign is visible in both shots. But they didn't do a good job because they missed the Shell written on the 'barrier' itself.But did they really get up to such nefarious practices in that golden era of 50 years ago?
Asterix said:
I don't see any doctoring.
The furthest two Shell signs are simply cropped just out of the image and the nearest third one has pivoted on the pole - you can just make out the thin line of it from the side. I can anyway.
explain the different window sizes in the building behind the shell logo then?The furthest two Shell signs are simply cropped just out of the image and the nearest third one has pivoted on the pole - you can just make out the thin line of it from the side. I can anyway.
Or the missing Esso logo, 1/3rd in from the left of the 2nd shot.
Even the hanging Shell logo/thing seems to be a good few inches thick, you'd see it side on with some profile, and thats if its perfectly side on to the camera, which looking at the frame holding it, is isn't.
I have an idea. Join me, comrades! Boycott Esso and Shell fuel for the rest of lunchtime. (They are one and the same, afterall etc etc more nonsense here).
This will force them to admit what has happened and all the other fuel companis will have to follow.
Its a very good point though.
This will force them to admit what has happened and all the other fuel companis will have to follow.
Its a very good point though.
Good spotEric Mc said:
That's what's caused the crash - the sudden appearance of an Esso sign out of nowhere distracted Innes Ireland who lost control and triggered a multiple pile up.
Actually, I've just done a bit more reading up about this, and it appears that the crash was caused by Ginther (number 8) whose BRM's throttle stuck open (cripes, what a s
tty thing to happen on the approach to the first corner of a race!). Richie collected the innocent Innes Ireland (#3, with chequered helmet) and Trintignant (#30) on the way to his racing car/straw bale interface.But here's an interesting thing: in Ireland's autobiography (All Arms and Elbows - a fascinating read for afficionados of that era of F1, giving a good indication of the massive difference between the way things were done then and now) he mentions that the previous year there was a spat between BP and Shell, caused when Ireland himself (works Lotus) and Stirling Moss (Rob Walker's Lotus) swapped cars for the Monza race - the upset revolving around the fact that one of them was a Shell driver, the other a BP driver. But this suggests that relations between the two oil companies at the time were less than cordial and cooperative - and that could be the sort of background in which it's easy to imagine them getting involved in petty vindictiveness, such as gubbering about with each other's appearances in photographs.
It's highly unlikely that I have, by sheer chance, stumbled upon the only instance of photo-doctoring from that era: there must be loads of other cases like this, where some advert or other is visible in one photo but missing from another which was taken at the same time and place. So........any others, guys??
jonnylayze said:
A marshal was struck a fatal blow by the wheel from the BRM and I wonder whether the fatality is anything to do with the airbrushing of one of the brands out of pictures of the accident? Or is that a conspiracy theory too far?
Interesting idea.There's yet another picture of this incident in the superb Schlegelmilch book about the Monaco GP - taken from a different angle, but at almost exactly the same moment as the first shot on this thread - again, you can see the stray wheel still in the air - and the Shell signs are all there. Can't see the Esso sign, though - but that may be to do with the different locations of the 2 photographers concerned.
You're right about the fatality, jonny: Innes Ireland reckoned the wheel which killed the marshal came from Trintignant's #30 car, but I think the flying wheel looks more like the BRM ones; also Trintingant's car doesn't look like it's missing a wheel, as it isn't down at one corner.
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