Closing Thoughts After 25 Years
(Reed R. Simonsen • 2016)
If I were a braver man, I would lay out all of the amazing details of Joseph Smith Imagery Research which I have witnessed over these past twenty-five years. In truth, I have met so many wonderful — and so many crazy — people that it would in itself make a book. I am certain that Chad and his exceptional brother Jim (who became our eyes and ears on the East Coast) could do the same.
For the 20th anniversary of Photograph Found I recorded a handful of some of the more nutty experiences I had had in this fruitful field of research. They are nothing if not entertaining. Before sharing a few stories, I must start out by saying that the General Authorities and Leaders of the LDS Church and the then RLDS Church were nothing but perfect gentlemen. They opened their doors and homes — and without committing to anything — did what was within their power to help us research. I can’t say that some of their underlings were always so kind. I remember speaking to one head archivist who will remain nameless. I went to see him and asked him for help in researching some materials in his collection. He looked me in the eye and said, “Well I’d be more apt to help you if you had a letter of introduction from someone admirable.”
That seemed fair and I was young, so I sought out one of his bosses who was also respected and thus “admirable.”
I made an hour long case to him and he wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation for the archivist, asking him “to assist me and let me look at anything I needed to help my work progress.”
When I returned with the letter, I handed it to archivist. He read it silently and said, “Well, if you’re going to throw names around here, you certainly won’t make any friends with me!”
I gently pointed out that I was only following his directive from before. He admitted that was true and asked me what I wanted to see. I told him a third time and he disappeared for a moment returning with the items I requested. The items did prove very insightful and several findings made it into Photograph Found.
When I asked the archivist if I might make a photocopy of one useful item, he coldly replied, “Your letter says you can look at anything you wish, it does not say that you have permission to make copies of anything.” So I laboriously hand copied the data onto a legal pad.
In terms of famous Church historians and scholars we spoke with (or before whom we were summoned), some of whom are now physically — or mentally — deceased, each expressed either gratitude or frustration with our work. One BYU professor took Chad & me aside and in near tears of joy, told us that our work was a gift to his spirit. Later that week another would rake us over the coals. Of course it didn’t help that we had pointed out several inconsistent dates in his academic publications.
One time I called a respected scholar, introduced myself and asked him a few questions about the Prophet. He replied, “I have no idea how to answer you, but there’s a young moron in Bountiful who thinks he knows. Perhaps you should ask him. In fact, I have a copy of his initial research, let me get you his name.”
After a few moments, he returned and quietly said, “I hope I didn’t offend you Brother Simonsen.” Of course, I was the moron he was referring to. I told him that I had been called worse and perfectly understood if he disagreed with me. We did become friends despite our trivial disagreements.
Perhaps my most looney experiences came from the well intended public. As an example, some years ago I was approached by a woman who had found an old picture of Martin Harris in a Harris family attic. She wanted to know if I could authenticate it. I told her that I barely considered myself an authority on Joseph Smith, let alone anyone else. However, I was willing to look at the picture and give her my opinion. The picture did look like Martin Harris, so I referred her to several collectors. In the end she was handsomely paid for the picture. I recall that it was around $10,000. Just enough for her to refurbish a much needed kitchen (if my memory serves.)
A few months later, she approached me again, this time with the news that she had found a — never before seen — picture of Emma Smith! She wanted to know who might want to buy it. I asked her if I could see it. She nervously sent me a copy in which she had written several hasty “copyright” notices on the front and back. (Something she had not done with Martin Harris.) Well... one look told me immediately that it was not Emma. The enormous Russian nose and Quaker outfit were but one of several clues. I took a deep breath, and called her on the phone, asking, “Where did you find this picture?” She told me that she had been in an Antique Shop near Boise and that the Holy Ghost had told her to buy it since it was an unknown picture of Emma Smith. Personal revelation aside, I suggested that she keep that information to herself and that it was not Emma. She of course was not happy with my lack of faith but in the end, the picture did not sell and she wasn’t able to refurbish her master bathroom.
Once I was invited to one man’s house to see a recently discovered photograph of Joseph Smith which he claimed to have, and which he wanted me to see immediately. He sat me down and told me that he knew of a group of speculators who were attempting to fabricate a photograph and sell it to the church for 5 million dollars. He said that it would be of Joseph Smith standing up. I told him that I rather doubted that the church would pay anything for a photograph and especially 5 million dollars, and especially a forged photograph. He asked if I thought they would pay 1 million for it. I left.
On another occasion I was invited to see a man about a picture he had found that contained both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young together (something I rather doubted given the history of Nauvoo Photography et cetera and so forth, but hey). I met his wife at their front door and introduced myself. She was very angry and whispered that I was not to encourage her husband in his delusions. When he appeared behind her, she let me in, then promptly got in her car and left. I was treated very kindly before being shown a very fuzzy picture of two men, highly retouched, dating, surely from the 1860s. I commented to him that it was difficult to give any opinion on a picture so out- of-focus. I asked if I might see the original. He told me that it was indeed much clearer in quality but that it was being hidden in an undisclosed vault since his life would surely be in danger if its whereabouts were known. I asked him who he was afraid of ?
“The Twelve Apostles,” he candidly replied. When I asked him why the Twelve Apostles were to be feared, he told me that they would kill him to get their hands on his picture. In order to further protect it, he had only allowed out-of-focus copies to be distributed outside the vault.
Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t get up and leave right then. I guess I didn’t want to be rude. As he continued, he spoke about secret Masonic cults and all kinds of new and improved Nauvoo history which I had never heard before. Finally, he showed me his collection of photocopied historical photographs which he was authenticating. As he was pointing out the images of “prominent” men and women of Mormon history, he turned to one particular photocopied picture which he claimed was a never before seen picture of Frederick Smith, son of Joseph Smith, Jr.
My eyes kept glancing at the picture. I couldn’t quite place it. I knew that I had seen that picture before but where? A few minutes later it hit me! I had seen it before! And I did know where! In my own private collection! I owned the original daguerreotype and had been using it to illustrate the folly in using Joseph Smith’s death mask and skull measures as a litmus test to authenticate his image. He had photocopied the image from Appendix D of Photograph Found which at the time was still in print or being photocopied around. (The image here referred to is the same as Fig. 47, leftmost.)
I had purchased this old photo in Nauvoo from an antique dealer up the street from the Mansion House. I had purposely purchased it, because I wanted to illustrate that you cannot simply find an old photograph of some “guy from Nauvoo” draw lines around his face, then compare him to a couple of 1928 photographs of a skull with lens aspects you can’t control and prove you are looking at Joseph Smith. Well, this man had read my own book and had had a revelation looking at that illustration. (It does line up nicely with the death mask though! Oh, brother!)
When I finally got over my shock, I turned to him and said, “I own the original daguerreotype of this image. It’s at home right now in my desk drawer.”
I should have expected his answer, and looking back I feel that I deserved it, “Really?” he said, getting very excited, “Do you have a safe place to hide it? Do you know what an original Frederick Smith daguerreotype from Nauvoo is worth? And who might try and take it from you?”
Well, all I can say, looking back is, it’s still in my desk drawer and none of the Twelve Apostles of either church have tried to steal it or murder me.
I will never forget being at a historical conference where a scholar was showing off a proposed picture of Joseph Smith he had obtained from some old lady. He was 80% certain it was Joseph Smith. The picture looked nothing like any of the images we had of the Prophet, was very deteriorated and had no reliable history to connect it to the Smiths, but he was 80% sure based on his own research. We shook hands and parted to our hotel rooms, the next morning in the lobby over our complimentary breakfast, he told me that he was now 95% sure that his picture was Joseph Smith. I couldn’t resist asking him how he had jumped 15% in certainty from the night before when the only new discovery in his research was a complimentary bagel and cream cheese. He was not amused.
Well, those are just a couple of the one’s I dare tell. Perhaps I will tell more when more of the players in this fascinating and bizarre field are dead. Who knows? Maybe no one will care by then; I hardly care now.
What I have learned, if anything, is that human nature is consistent. I have met most of the major players in this arena over the course of the years. Befriended many of them, offended others. Neither was intended. I say consistent because, if all this research and history, twenty-five years later, says anything, it’s that men in the 1800s wanted to make money by owning and marketing a piece of Joseph Smith. They masked photographs, repainted photographs, copyrighted their works and made paintings to sell — all for a profit and their own glory.
Okay, fine, but here we are in the 2010s. Has anything changed? Modern men, and now women, are still at it. Perhaps we’re all guilty together.
I think in the end it comes down to this: Most of us want to be associated with greatness in some manner. Somewhere in the “day-to-day, enduring-to-the-end, sameness” which will eventually make up our Celestial Crown, we find ourselves wanting that 15 minutes of social media fame. We want to cross the frozen Delaware, see Moroni, or find our name written in an Encyclopedia. If we can’t do that, then we want to be associated with someone else who has. If you can’t be an Abraham Lincoln, you can always be a John Wilkes Booth; as twisted as that is.
I want to believe that the Apostle Paul was closer to it, when he wrote of our eternal souls bound in flesh crying for something greater; for progression, for ambition, for godhood — Mormon- style. My more cynical side suspects that greed and personal glory are closer to the truth.
Since writing those words I have continued to pursue this topic but with a great deal more decorum. I remember the day it changed. I had been working at home when out of the blue I received yet another call from someone wanting to talk and debate Joseph Smith image research. I listened to their story, theories and findings, and as I geared up to lay out my arguments, I felt all of the energy in my body drain like flushed water out my feet and onto the floor. I had never experience anything like that before. Nearly robotic, I turned and hung up the phone. Today I know a tremendous more than I did even then. Since the new data will change less than 1% of what Chad and I have written, I have decided to let the matter rest for now. In this fascinating area of research, people have and always will believe what they choose, and that has always been enough for me.
Today, if I know anything at all, it is that Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was His restorer-prophet and that the same restoration he oversaw continues today in the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nestled in a valley of the everlasting hills called Salt Lake City.
I can only wish that I were more worthy of the blessings I have received collectively with all of the Saints, but even in this, Joseph was ahead of me. He said of himself, but he could have just as easily said of all “We The Latter-day Saints” together:
I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women -- all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty... — see History of the Church 5:401
President Erza Taft Benson said this same thing when he said, “I’m a good man, but I’m not as good a man as I’m going to be!”
Perhaps this is why the Lord calls young men and women as his missionary-warriors and then sets over them the aged sages and sisters to help them make sense of it all. Those willing to help shoulder the burden of a testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith will find that there is no other man within the grasp of modernity whose writings, teachings and preachings can freshen and re-freshen the soul again and again with new insights which of a truth were always there to see. And he was murdered at 39!
The Restored Gospel is true and if you don’t know that yet, you will on the day when you meet the Lord and see standing at His shoulder, one step behind Him, the Prophet He sent to tell us all about it — I stand with the Saints in declaring that his name was Joseph Smith, Jr., regardless of what he looked like.
You can be sure on that day there will be quite a few of us with a second not-so-secret agenda. I for one will be looking at the prophet’s face to see if his nose is really Sutcliffe Maudsley huge, whether or not he had that ridiculous death mask underbite seen in so many paintings of the 1980s and if he has finally upgraded his 1840’s hair-do. I suspect I will know him because he looks like his photograph, but...
Either way is fine with me.
Reed Simonsen
Studio City, California
December 23rd 2016
For the 20th anniversary of Photograph Found I recorded a handful of some of the more nutty experiences I had had in this fruitful field of research. They are nothing if not entertaining. Before sharing a few stories, I must start out by saying that the General Authorities and Leaders of the LDS Church and the then RLDS Church were nothing but perfect gentlemen. They opened their doors and homes — and without committing to anything — did what was within their power to help us research. I can’t say that some of their underlings were always so kind. I remember speaking to one head archivist who will remain nameless. I went to see him and asked him for help in researching some materials in his collection. He looked me in the eye and said, “Well I’d be more apt to help you if you had a letter of introduction from someone admirable.”
That seemed fair and I was young, so I sought out one of his bosses who was also respected and thus “admirable.”
I made an hour long case to him and he wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation for the archivist, asking him “to assist me and let me look at anything I needed to help my work progress.”
When I returned with the letter, I handed it to archivist. He read it silently and said, “Well, if you’re going to throw names around here, you certainly won’t make any friends with me!”
I gently pointed out that I was only following his directive from before. He admitted that was true and asked me what I wanted to see. I told him a third time and he disappeared for a moment returning with the items I requested. The items did prove very insightful and several findings made it into Photograph Found.
When I asked the archivist if I might make a photocopy of one useful item, he coldly replied, “Your letter says you can look at anything you wish, it does not say that you have permission to make copies of anything.” So I laboriously hand copied the data onto a legal pad.
In terms of famous Church historians and scholars we spoke with (or before whom we were summoned), some of whom are now physically — or mentally — deceased, each expressed either gratitude or frustration with our work. One BYU professor took Chad & me aside and in near tears of joy, told us that our work was a gift to his spirit. Later that week another would rake us over the coals. Of course it didn’t help that we had pointed out several inconsistent dates in his academic publications.
One time I called a respected scholar, introduced myself and asked him a few questions about the Prophet. He replied, “I have no idea how to answer you, but there’s a young moron in Bountiful who thinks he knows. Perhaps you should ask him. In fact, I have a copy of his initial research, let me get you his name.”
After a few moments, he returned and quietly said, “I hope I didn’t offend you Brother Simonsen.” Of course, I was the moron he was referring to. I told him that I had been called worse and perfectly understood if he disagreed with me. We did become friends despite our trivial disagreements.
Perhaps my most looney experiences came from the well intended public. As an example, some years ago I was approached by a woman who had found an old picture of Martin Harris in a Harris family attic. She wanted to know if I could authenticate it. I told her that I barely considered myself an authority on Joseph Smith, let alone anyone else. However, I was willing to look at the picture and give her my opinion. The picture did look like Martin Harris, so I referred her to several collectors. In the end she was handsomely paid for the picture. I recall that it was around $10,000. Just enough for her to refurbish a much needed kitchen (if my memory serves.)
A few months later, she approached me again, this time with the news that she had found a — never before seen — picture of Emma Smith! She wanted to know who might want to buy it. I asked her if I could see it. She nervously sent me a copy in which she had written several hasty “copyright” notices on the front and back. (Something she had not done with Martin Harris.) Well... one look told me immediately that it was not Emma. The enormous Russian nose and Quaker outfit were but one of several clues. I took a deep breath, and called her on the phone, asking, “Where did you find this picture?” She told me that she had been in an Antique Shop near Boise and that the Holy Ghost had told her to buy it since it was an unknown picture of Emma Smith. Personal revelation aside, I suggested that she keep that information to herself and that it was not Emma. She of course was not happy with my lack of faith but in the end, the picture did not sell and she wasn’t able to refurbish her master bathroom.
Once I was invited to one man’s house to see a recently discovered photograph of Joseph Smith which he claimed to have, and which he wanted me to see immediately. He sat me down and told me that he knew of a group of speculators who were attempting to fabricate a photograph and sell it to the church for 5 million dollars. He said that it would be of Joseph Smith standing up. I told him that I rather doubted that the church would pay anything for a photograph and especially 5 million dollars, and especially a forged photograph. He asked if I thought they would pay 1 million for it. I left.
On another occasion I was invited to see a man about a picture he had found that contained both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young together (something I rather doubted given the history of Nauvoo Photography et cetera and so forth, but hey). I met his wife at their front door and introduced myself. She was very angry and whispered that I was not to encourage her husband in his delusions. When he appeared behind her, she let me in, then promptly got in her car and left. I was treated very kindly before being shown a very fuzzy picture of two men, highly retouched, dating, surely from the 1860s. I commented to him that it was difficult to give any opinion on a picture so out- of-focus. I asked if I might see the original. He told me that it was indeed much clearer in quality but that it was being hidden in an undisclosed vault since his life would surely be in danger if its whereabouts were known. I asked him who he was afraid of ?
“The Twelve Apostles,” he candidly replied. When I asked him why the Twelve Apostles were to be feared, he told me that they would kill him to get their hands on his picture. In order to further protect it, he had only allowed out-of-focus copies to be distributed outside the vault.
Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t get up and leave right then. I guess I didn’t want to be rude. As he continued, he spoke about secret Masonic cults and all kinds of new and improved Nauvoo history which I had never heard before. Finally, he showed me his collection of photocopied historical photographs which he was authenticating. As he was pointing out the images of “prominent” men and women of Mormon history, he turned to one particular photocopied picture which he claimed was a never before seen picture of Frederick Smith, son of Joseph Smith, Jr.
My eyes kept glancing at the picture. I couldn’t quite place it. I knew that I had seen that picture before but where? A few minutes later it hit me! I had seen it before! And I did know where! In my own private collection! I owned the original daguerreotype and had been using it to illustrate the folly in using Joseph Smith’s death mask and skull measures as a litmus test to authenticate his image. He had photocopied the image from Appendix D of Photograph Found which at the time was still in print or being photocopied around. (The image here referred to is the same as Fig. 47, leftmost.)
I had purchased this old photo in Nauvoo from an antique dealer up the street from the Mansion House. I had purposely purchased it, because I wanted to illustrate that you cannot simply find an old photograph of some “guy from Nauvoo” draw lines around his face, then compare him to a couple of 1928 photographs of a skull with lens aspects you can’t control and prove you are looking at Joseph Smith. Well, this man had read my own book and had had a revelation looking at that illustration. (It does line up nicely with the death mask though! Oh, brother!)
When I finally got over my shock, I turned to him and said, “I own the original daguerreotype of this image. It’s at home right now in my desk drawer.”
I should have expected his answer, and looking back I feel that I deserved it, “Really?” he said, getting very excited, “Do you have a safe place to hide it? Do you know what an original Frederick Smith daguerreotype from Nauvoo is worth? And who might try and take it from you?”
Well, all I can say, looking back is, it’s still in my desk drawer and none of the Twelve Apostles of either church have tried to steal it or murder me.
I will never forget being at a historical conference where a scholar was showing off a proposed picture of Joseph Smith he had obtained from some old lady. He was 80% certain it was Joseph Smith. The picture looked nothing like any of the images we had of the Prophet, was very deteriorated and had no reliable history to connect it to the Smiths, but he was 80% sure based on his own research. We shook hands and parted to our hotel rooms, the next morning in the lobby over our complimentary breakfast, he told me that he was now 95% sure that his picture was Joseph Smith. I couldn’t resist asking him how he had jumped 15% in certainty from the night before when the only new discovery in his research was a complimentary bagel and cream cheese. He was not amused.
Well, those are just a couple of the one’s I dare tell. Perhaps I will tell more when more of the players in this fascinating and bizarre field are dead. Who knows? Maybe no one will care by then; I hardly care now.
What I have learned, if anything, is that human nature is consistent. I have met most of the major players in this arena over the course of the years. Befriended many of them, offended others. Neither was intended. I say consistent because, if all this research and history, twenty-five years later, says anything, it’s that men in the 1800s wanted to make money by owning and marketing a piece of Joseph Smith. They masked photographs, repainted photographs, copyrighted their works and made paintings to sell — all for a profit and their own glory.
Okay, fine, but here we are in the 2010s. Has anything changed? Modern men, and now women, are still at it. Perhaps we’re all guilty together.
I think in the end it comes down to this: Most of us want to be associated with greatness in some manner. Somewhere in the “day-to-day, enduring-to-the-end, sameness” which will eventually make up our Celestial Crown, we find ourselves wanting that 15 minutes of social media fame. We want to cross the frozen Delaware, see Moroni, or find our name written in an Encyclopedia. If we can’t do that, then we want to be associated with someone else who has. If you can’t be an Abraham Lincoln, you can always be a John Wilkes Booth; as twisted as that is.
I want to believe that the Apostle Paul was closer to it, when he wrote of our eternal souls bound in flesh crying for something greater; for progression, for ambition, for godhood — Mormon- style. My more cynical side suspects that greed and personal glory are closer to the truth.
Since writing those words I have continued to pursue this topic but with a great deal more decorum. I remember the day it changed. I had been working at home when out of the blue I received yet another call from someone wanting to talk and debate Joseph Smith image research. I listened to their story, theories and findings, and as I geared up to lay out my arguments, I felt all of the energy in my body drain like flushed water out my feet and onto the floor. I had never experience anything like that before. Nearly robotic, I turned and hung up the phone. Today I know a tremendous more than I did even then. Since the new data will change less than 1% of what Chad and I have written, I have decided to let the matter rest for now. In this fascinating area of research, people have and always will believe what they choose, and that has always been enough for me.
Today, if I know anything at all, it is that Jesus is the Christ, Joseph Smith was His restorer-prophet and that the same restoration he oversaw continues today in the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nestled in a valley of the everlasting hills called Salt Lake City.
I can only wish that I were more worthy of the blessings I have received collectively with all of the Saints, but even in this, Joseph was ahead of me. He said of himself, but he could have just as easily said of all “We The Latter-day Saints” together:
I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women -- all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty... — see History of the Church 5:401
President Erza Taft Benson said this same thing when he said, “I’m a good man, but I’m not as good a man as I’m going to be!”
Perhaps this is why the Lord calls young men and women as his missionary-warriors and then sets over them the aged sages and sisters to help them make sense of it all. Those willing to help shoulder the burden of a testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith will find that there is no other man within the grasp of modernity whose writings, teachings and preachings can freshen and re-freshen the soul again and again with new insights which of a truth were always there to see. And he was murdered at 39!
The Restored Gospel is true and if you don’t know that yet, you will on the day when you meet the Lord and see standing at His shoulder, one step behind Him, the Prophet He sent to tell us all about it — I stand with the Saints in declaring that his name was Joseph Smith, Jr., regardless of what he looked like.
You can be sure on that day there will be quite a few of us with a second not-so-secret agenda. I for one will be looking at the prophet’s face to see if his nose is really Sutcliffe Maudsley huge, whether or not he had that ridiculous death mask underbite seen in so many paintings of the 1980s and if he has finally upgraded his 1840’s hair-do. I suspect I will know him because he looks like his photograph, but...
Either way is fine with me.
Reed Simonsen
Studio City, California
December 23rd 2016
Rationale for Fair Use of Copyrighted Items Herein
We acknowledge that some of the images included in this document are owned and still under copyright protection by others, namely, the Community of Christ Church which is also still legally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which has no official affiliation with the Utah headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, other than friendship.) United States Copyright Law allows authors, scholars, educators, newsmen and others to use, publish and reproduce another’s copyrighted works without permission under certain guidelines. Since courts have judged each use on their own merits, it has become a common practice to show an intended Fair Use Claim to a 3rd-party (usually an attorney) for an opinion. While not required to do so, we have followed this practice and included the findings here.
Again, while NOT required to do so, we have listed our reasons for fair using these images under the claim of Fair Use solely to show that our intentions are not to offend but merely to educate. We have nothing but respect for our historical colleagues and hope the following rationales will demonstrate that (as well as soften feelings, if possible.)
The law allows Fair Use when copyrighted material is being used to make a specific educational, research-based, scholarly, and/or critical comment on the work used. This is needed in free society since knowledge and history could not advance if copyright holders had the right to refuse use for any reason. They would therefore be able to control knowledge which is counter-productive to truth. In careful consultation with our attorney, we were informed that we met ALL of the above uses in each of the items used. Any ONE alone is sufficient for use.
Fair Use is also legal when it causes a “transformative” effect on the work, meaning that it changes the work to serve a new purpose. Visually our use here does this, particularly figure 46. Intellectually figures 44 and 45 do this as well as our use here “transforms” the historical meaning of the works as important illustrations of photographic-paintery history in Nauvoo as well as gives these images the “added” meaning of being connected to Smith Family imagery in its larger context of creation, providence, and etc.
The Law further allows Fair Use when items used are “factually-based, non- fiction or news-worthy” to the public. We believe this point is obvious in our case. In connection, if the item was previously published, the claim is strengthened. As already mentioned these items were released, with proper credit given over ten years ago (as of our use in 2017.) Fair Use is also legally permissible if the use does not cause the copyright holder to lose the use-value of the work. In order to strengthen our already strong claim here, we have released these images at a lower resolution then we have access to and in “grey-scale” in order to make the originals more valuable and desirable for future release by the copyright owners, in the event they wish to do so. Lastly courts have said that it is not a limiting factor as to whether the use is included in a “for-profit venture.” This is logical as all scholarly and news-worthy releases are connected to profit more or less.
Courts have found that ANY one of the above reasons are enough to allow Fair Use. We have demonstrated that our use covers multiple rationales which courts have upheld as “strengthening the justification for an items fair use.”
As a side note, we were also told that our use herein would justify the reproduction of Joseph and Hyrum’s exhumation photos and records (including their grisly remains) but as our intention is not to shock nor offend, we have chosen to continue to use William Whitaker’s sketches (which as of this writing at least) we believe are sufficient to make our point.
The above rationale has been reviewed by attorney Paul Asay of Missouri.
We acknowledge that some of the images included in this document are owned and still under copyright protection by others, namely, the Community of Christ Church which is also still legally known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which has no official affiliation with the Utah headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, other than friendship.) United States Copyright Law allows authors, scholars, educators, newsmen and others to use, publish and reproduce another’s copyrighted works without permission under certain guidelines. Since courts have judged each use on their own merits, it has become a common practice to show an intended Fair Use Claim to a 3rd-party (usually an attorney) for an opinion. While not required to do so, we have followed this practice and included the findings here.
Again, while NOT required to do so, we have listed our reasons for fair using these images under the claim of Fair Use solely to show that our intentions are not to offend but merely to educate. We have nothing but respect for our historical colleagues and hope the following rationales will demonstrate that (as well as soften feelings, if possible.)
The law allows Fair Use when copyrighted material is being used to make a specific educational, research-based, scholarly, and/or critical comment on the work used. This is needed in free society since knowledge and history could not advance if copyright holders had the right to refuse use for any reason. They would therefore be able to control knowledge which is counter-productive to truth. In careful consultation with our attorney, we were informed that we met ALL of the above uses in each of the items used. Any ONE alone is sufficient for use.
Fair Use is also legal when it causes a “transformative” effect on the work, meaning that it changes the work to serve a new purpose. Visually our use here does this, particularly figure 46. Intellectually figures 44 and 45 do this as well as our use here “transforms” the historical meaning of the works as important illustrations of photographic-paintery history in Nauvoo as well as gives these images the “added” meaning of being connected to Smith Family imagery in its larger context of creation, providence, and etc.
The Law further allows Fair Use when items used are “factually-based, non- fiction or news-worthy” to the public. We believe this point is obvious in our case. In connection, if the item was previously published, the claim is strengthened. As already mentioned these items were released, with proper credit given over ten years ago (as of our use in 2017.) Fair Use is also legally permissible if the use does not cause the copyright holder to lose the use-value of the work. In order to strengthen our already strong claim here, we have released these images at a lower resolution then we have access to and in “grey-scale” in order to make the originals more valuable and desirable for future release by the copyright owners, in the event they wish to do so. Lastly courts have said that it is not a limiting factor as to whether the use is included in a “for-profit venture.” This is logical as all scholarly and news-worthy releases are connected to profit more or less.
Courts have found that ANY one of the above reasons are enough to allow Fair Use. We have demonstrated that our use covers multiple rationales which courts have upheld as “strengthening the justification for an items fair use.”
As a side note, we were also told that our use herein would justify the reproduction of Joseph and Hyrum’s exhumation photos and records (including their grisly remains) but as our intention is not to shock nor offend, we have chosen to continue to use William Whitaker’s sketches (which as of this writing at least) we believe are sufficient to make our point.
The above rationale has been reviewed by attorney Paul Asay of Missouri.
