This documentary explains how Randy Guijarro, a collector of memorabilia, was able to reconstruct the provenance for a tintype he bought for less than $2 and show that it is only the second known photograph of Billy the Kid. According to the Los Angeles Times the photo is worth $5 million.
Mixed in with his quest to authenticate the photo are convincing reenactments of the short life of William Bonney. I thought Jor-el Vaasborg was especially convincing as Billy -- his resemblance to the title character was actually even a little spooky.
A few minor criticisms: I thought the movie was a little vague about exactly what computer technique they used for the first attempt to demonstrate resemblance to known images of the people in the picture. Also since they appear to have found the exact spot where the picture was taken, they could have gone a step further. The sun seems to appear in the image. Since the date it was taken was suspected, they could have gotten an astronomer to testify that the sun would have appeared there then. (I hope this doesn't cost them!)
Mixed in with his quest to authenticate the photo are convincing reenactments of the short life of William Bonney. I thought Jor-el Vaasborg was especially convincing as Billy -- his resemblance to the title character was actually even a little spooky.
A few minor criticisms: I thought the movie was a little vague about exactly what computer technique they used for the first attempt to demonstrate resemblance to known images of the people in the picture. Also since they appear to have found the exact spot where the picture was taken, they could have gone a step further. The sun seems to appear in the image. Since the date it was taken was suspected, they could have gotten an astronomer to testify that the sun would have appeared there then. (I hope this doesn't cost them!)