Impossible to refute evidence the BYPs are composites - this is a done deal

[David Josephs]

David, I am not arguing that the shadows are wrong in the photos. (Indeed, I think they are very suspicious.) What I have been arguing all along, even in the PMs I sent you, that your opening photo, showing your shadows diverging rather than converging, is wrong. Shadows with the sun behind never diverge. If you believe that then perhaps you could post a photo or two to show me where I am wrong.

What you say about the shadows converging too quickly could be right. I am not arguing that. (It may well be due to the camera angle and perspective.) As I said earlier, I think the photos are fake. Just that you think you have solved the mystery when you haven't.

I have posted a number of photos showing how shadows converge, but you seem to be in denial, even saying (in the opening post that one of the photos "cannot be correct" when it obviously is.)

Ray, I don't challenge that photo...PHOTOS of shadows can play tricks with the properties of light.

Postin a photo of RR tracks going off into the horizon and then claiming they converge in reality is the mistake. You can argue forever that the photo of the RR tracks PROVES they coverge... again, they do not.

So please, for a second separate PHOTOS where the engles are strange or the ditance/focal length is unknown, where the lens type is unknown... etc... Let's just stay talking about the image at hand.

Do the shadows in that image behave as they should? Do they fall in nearly parallel lines, as they SHOULD?

No Ray, they do not. The lines I've drawn on that image have all been for illustration purposes. That you call me out for claiming the shadows converge slightly behind the camera due to an "example by way of illustration" insults my intelligence.

If all you need me to say is that "In some photos shadows will appear as if they converge in the direction the shadow is falling" - there you go.

In the real world of physics though, that cannot happen - the RR tracks NEVER meet.

When the light source is behind the camera, the shadows, like RR tracks, may appear to converge towards the horizon... but they don't.

Let's try it this way Ray...

Here are converging shadows with the subject directly in front of the camera. The shadows arew behaving as we'd expect... they converge towards the sun and diverge away from it.

When we flip it and put the sun behind the camera, the same thing is true... If one side of that fence had shadows falling in line with the red line, we'd know there was something wrong.

It seems you're mixing a photo's vanishing point physics with the properties of light and shadow. They are simply not the same thing. A PHOTO can make light appear to do things it does not do.