In addition to various discrepancies about the dates of certain photographs, bear in mind that the translunar trajectory is not a straight line. Both the earth and the moon will go through changes of phase as seen from the spacecraft en route simply due to the spacecraft's change in position. That doesn't hold for circular orbits, but if any of the dates for the photos place the spacecraft en route, you can't make generalizations about phase.

As for the apparent fluctuation of the earth in the sky in the J-missions, recall that the J-missions lasted for three days, producing a difference in sun elevation of up to 30° between photographs. Further, the local horizon is not necessarily a good approximation of the theoretical horizon, especially on the moon where the horizon is actually much closer to the photographer.