24th Jan 2023

Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts Photo Analysis

MercuryNews: ‘I don’t see any obvious signs of manipulation’: UC Berkeley Prof. Hany Farid, one of the world’s leading experts in digital forensics, analyzed the notorious photo of Andrew and Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

One of Prince Andrew’s key lines of defense to allegations that he participated in the abuse of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s underaged “sex slaves” is that someone must have faked the widely shared image of him with the girl.

In his BBC interview, Andrew suggested that the photo — showing him with his arm around Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s waist while standing in Ghislaine Maxwell’s London townhouse in 2001 — was the result of digital trickery.

Andrew said, “I have absolutely no memory of that photograph… I’m afraid to say that I don’t believe that photograph was taken in the way that has been suggested.”

But UC Berkeley Professor Hany Farid, one of the foremost international experts in image manipulation, said he sees no “obvious signs” the photo was doctored.

BecomeABetterPhotographer: Is the photo genuine or has it been doctored in some evil way? My four reasons why I think it is real – a forensic analysis.

There are several tell-tale signs that can expose the truth about whether an image has been doctored or manipulated, so let’s take a look.

1.) Lighting: You can see from the flash in the window that the photo has been taken with a flashgun. The lighting on all three faces supports this, as it is exactly the kind of overall flat ‘Hard’ light that you get from a small light source. Ghislaine Maxwell’s face is darker due to her being further away and so the light has ‘fallen off'. The light from compact camera flashes only reaches 10-12 feet, plus the Inverse Square Law means that her being just a couple of feet further back, reduces the light reaching her by a quarter.

Had the lighting been different for any of the faces (i.e a photo taken under different lighting conditions), that face would have had a slightly different shadow pattern.

2.) Catchlights: Reasonably well lit portraits will put a small sparkle in the subject’s eyes, these are known as ‘catchlights’. You can tell from the catchlights where the light source was positioned, so if the catchlights are in different positions in both sets of eyes, that would be a dead giveaway that one of the photos was taken with differently positioned lighting and that a head had been swapped. However, zooming in on their faces you can see that the catchlights are in the same position, exactly what you'd expect. There’s a touch of red-eye because the photo was taken with small flash pointed directly at them (as opposed to the light being bounced off a wall or ceiling, using a more advanced approach.).

3.) Shadows: Depending on various circumstances, small built-in flashes can cast hard edged shadows onto walls and surfaces behind subjects. You can see just to the left side of Prince Andrew’s face, running from his chin to his hair, a narrow shadow on the white wall behind him. Virginia’s arm from her wrist to her elbow has also made a narrow shadow on Ghislaine’s white blouse.

The shadows have exactly the same pattern indicating that the light source was the same and positioned in the same place.

4.) Her hair: Hair is notoriously difficult to cut out, if not done absolutely expertly, the very edges of the hair will have a discernible hard edge, indicating that it’s been cut-out. Look at the way Virginia’s hair overlaps Prince Andrew’s blue shirt, it looks perfectly natural and un-retouched. A slightly hard-edge to her hair would have been a dead giveaway.

NowToLove: Kiwi photographer's proof: The photo of Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts Giuffre is not fake.

It shows, of course, Virginia at the age of 17 standing next to Prince Andrew in March 2001, at the London home of publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell's daughter Ghislaine Maxwell, who beams in the background. 

It was taken by Ghislaine's sometime boyfriend, pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, shortly after the foursome returned from an evening at Tramp nightclub and, according to Virginia, just minutes before she was induced into having sex with Andrew for the first of three times. 

The prince and his aides have belatedly tried to cast doubt on the authenticity of the photograph, insisting he was eating pizza with his daughters that evening, had never been upstairs at the house, doesn't remember ever meeting Virginia and never had sex with her.

"You can't prove whether or not that photograph is faked because it's a photograph of a photograph of a photograph," Andrew told BBC's Newsnight.

"It's ridiculous," Kiwi news photographer Michael Thomas says. "The FBI have had it for eight years and at no time have they said it's fake. "If it was fake, why is Andrew not suing the Mail on Sunday? You can imagine, working for them, what we went through to make sure the story was legally sound.

With more than 30 years of experience behind him, covering everything from war zones to Olympic Games, the Cannes Film Festival and Princess Diana's funeral, Kiwi news photographer Michael Thomas has plenty to be proud of.

"I have done some serious stories over the years and taken thousands of pictures in Iraq, Sierra Leone, Pakistan and Afghanistan," he says at his Arrowtown home. "But the only one that is going to be remembered is one I copied from a cheap print lying on a hotel-room table."

For Michael, the story that has shaken Buckingham Palace to its core began – like so many others in his 25 years working for the Mail on Sunday, both in London and New Zealand – with an order to get on a plane with little info on the task ahead.

"I took a flight to Sydney and drove up the coast to where Virginia lived with her husband Robert and their three kids.

The Andrew picture was just one of 12 that Virginia kept in an envelope and which Michael was asked to copy.

Now, with Andrew an outcast from his own family, Epstein dead by suicide in his jail cell, and Ghislaine sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, Virginia and the other victims continue to fight for justice, starting with their desire to see Andrew submit to questioning under oath. READ MORE: Jeffrey Epstein Cover-Up Part II

NOTE: This is a totally free article, no subscriptions or pay walls, no ads or pop ups, no donation buttons or anything to join or buy. No spam! I do not profit from any of this. I am not running for any political office, nor do I endorse any candidates or political parties.

Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold to these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

Sources:

Epstein's Little Black Book

FBI Files Jeffrey Epstein

Epstein's Private Jet's Flight Manifests

If you’re having any difficulty you can contact:

The nonprofit organization End Violence Against Women International began the national Start By Believing Campaign in 2011, to promote positive responses to sexual assault survivors who disclose. As the campaign’s name suggests, a statement of belief can have a huge impact on sexual assault survivors, and can influence their decision whether or not to disclose their sexual assault again. Start By Believing also provides more tips on what to say and what not to say when someone confides in you they’ve been sexually assaulted.

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