Is It Joseph Smith?

[upbeat music] So 100 years ago, the Improvement Era said Joseph's image had been abused as much as his doctrine.

You both started out skeptical of the photograph, the d- the daguerreotype.

Am I saying that right? Daguerreotype? Daguerreotype.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Daguerreotype.

Daguerreotype, right? Um, one of you in, in this whole process, in this project, was convinced that there wasn't even any photograph or daguerreotype taken of Joseph Smith at the time.

At what moment did your team start thinking, "Okay, I think we're gonna change our mind on what this is"?

Yeah, I wish Joseph Brickey could be here.

As you watched the film, you saw that he was the integral part in the whole forensic reconstruction.

And for me, that was the tipping point.

When I saw what Joseph had done and kind of married it to the research that I had, it seemed to create the big picture that I then just couldn't deny that this was a possibility that it was him.

Did ... [sighs] How skeptical were you starting off?

Well, um, skeptical enough to anybody that I talked with, I would say, "I, I don't think it's him." I, I was, I was vocal about it.

Um, and the main reason was the quality of the image.

I think I, I wanna say that up front.

When it was first published to the world in 2022, um, the images that they had captured of the, the metal plate with the glass over it, um, had some distortion in it.

Um, people weren't able to discern scratches or polish marks on the plate from what were wrinkles, which are actually none almost on the, on the man's face.

And so they, they saw this older guy, you know, that had wrinkles on his forehead.

And when you actually get a clear image of the daguerreotype, all of that stuff starts to fade away, and you start to see this man clearer.

The bridge of the nose, and, and that I had a problem with, um, had a slightly different shape and tone quality to it.

And the furrows on the brows were not furrows.

They, they were just scratches, like I mentioned.

Um, so that was, I guess, part of, of helping me truly interpret the image correctly, was then getting it photographed at high resolution without distortion.

So when you give me the story, just starting off, the original story of, of you finding out about this, I'm guessing it's what everybody else did when it was published, and then taking it from there and saying, "Okay, I wanna really know," why, why were you driven to even do this? Why not be like the rest of us that kind of look like, "Well, I won- I wonder.

[upbeat music] So 100 years ago, the Improvement Era said Joseph's image had been abused as much as his doctrine.

You both started out skeptical of the photograph, the d- the daguerreotype.

Am I saying that right? Daguerreotype? Daguerreotype.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Daguerreotype.

Daguerreotype, right? Um, one of you in, in this whole process, in this project, was convinced that there wasn't even any photograph or daguerreotype taken of Joseph Smith at the time.

At what moment did your team start thinking, "Okay, I think we're gonna change our mind on what this is"?

Yeah, I wish Joseph Brickey could be here.

As you watched the film, you saw that he was the integral part in the whole forensic reconstruction.

And for me, that was the tipping point.

When I saw what Joseph had done and kind of married it to the research that I had, it seemed to create the big picture that I then just couldn't deny that this was a possibility that it was him.

Did ... [sighs] How skeptical were you starting off?

Well, um, skeptical enough to anybody that I talked with, I would say, "I, I don't think it's him." I, I was, I was vocal about it.

Um, and the main reason was the quality of the image.

I think I, I wanna say that up front.

When it was first published to the world in 2022, um, the images that they had captured of the, the metal plate with the glass over it, um, had some distortion in it.

Um, people weren't able to discern scratches or polish marks on the plate from what were wrinkles, which are actually none almost on the, on the man's face.

And so they, they saw this older guy, you know, that had wrinkles on his forehead.

And when you actually get a clear image of the daguerreotype, all of that stuff starts to fade away, and you start to see this man clearer.

The bridge of the nose, and, and that I had a problem with, um, had a slightly different shape and tone quality to it.

And the furrows on the brows were not furrows.

They, they were just scratches, like I mentioned.

Um, so that was, I guess, part of, of helping me truly interpret the image correctly, was then getting it photographed at high resolution without distortion.

So when you give me the story, just starting off, the original story of, of you finding out about this, I'm guessing it's what everybody else did when it was published, and then taking it from there and saying, "Okay, I wanna really know," why, why were you driven to even do this? Why not be like the rest of us that kind of look like, "Well, I won- I wonder.