I think it is safe to say that we all know I am not Lois Lane…or even Brenda Star for that matter!! But sometimes something comes to our attention that is so obviously not as it should be that we have to stand up, take notice and report it to someone! Which is what has happened to me and that’s what I am doing!
Last week-end I was sent a funny e-mail from a relative of mine that had found an item on the Internet, thought of me and my sometimes strange sense of humor and sent it to me knowing I would find it funny and ironic.
It was pictures of a car that had rolled off of a pier in Ireland and into the water earlier this month, a crane truck was called to pull it out and lo and behold the crane fell into the water! Yet a second crane was called to pull the car and the first crane out of the water and That one fell into the drink!
The 2nd Questionable Crane
The first time, I glanced at it, knowing I would go back again a little later to get a better look at it and I did indeed think it was funny but something just didn’t look right, but it was early in the morning and I had just woke up and was reading my e-mails so I did not think much more about it. I promptly wrote a thank you note for sending it to me and went about my business of finishing my e-mails for the morning.
I later went back, a couple of times in fact, but could never put my finger on what seemed just not right about the pictures. Until! Monday.
Monday morning rolled around I wrote an e-mail to a friend or mine, HDW, The High Desert Wanderer, and told him I thought he would enjoy the photos and sent them to him.
He wrote back to me after looking at them and the only words on his e-mail to me were:
“Very funny, though the last one looks photoshopped”
I KNEW IT!! I knew then and there that the “something was not quite right” that I kept feeling about the photos, the last photo to be exact, was real!
I wrote back to him and ask him how he could tell but of course, him being the meanie that he is, would not tell me! Instead he gave me a made up “PhotoShop Quiz” about it, with tips and hints so that I could work it out myself!
A while later I was able to e-mail him again and tell him all of my findings to see if I was correct. He informed me that my findings were the same as his and what he had seen and thought also.
My findings were as follows:
- The Small Boat in the background was in the first few images and then left but miraculously reappear in the final photo…not returning from a cruise, but rather in the exact same spot that it had been in, what must have been a few hours before!
- The Cars. The last photo has the exact same cars in the exact same place as the first photos, which in itself is not unusual, BUT!! Upon looking at the natural progression of the photos more and more cars have come into the other photos and there are Many cars in the penultimate photo but a few short minutes later, which would have been the natural progression, all of the Many cars were gone and the original few were back in the picture!
- The Spectators, virtually the same as the cars, more and more spectators and the last photo the exact same spectators in the exact same spot as in the 5th photo, including the man in the white t-shirt crouching over!
- The green crane and the water splash is exactly the same as the orange crane and splash in the 4th photo!
I’m sure there are some other “give aways” but I think I have sufficiently made my point.
Now with HDW’s encouragement I am writing this post on what Some could consider a “Photo Hoax”!
Upon doing considerable research for this post, it appears that we were not the only ones taking an interest in these photos, especially the fake one at the end, that has undoubtedly been PhotoShopped or had some other type of image editing software used on it.
It seems to be the “talk of the town”, or at least the Internet!!
Many Websites are carrying the “real” photos snapped by Nicholas Griffin and the “fake” photo at the end Snopes.com seems to sum it up best for me with the “real” photos and the “fake” at the end if you care to take a look.
Notice how all of the photos are acknowledged as being taken by Nicholas Griffin? Except the last one of course!
The bad part about it is, that generally the “fakes” are usually created without the original photographers knowledge, thus leading people to believe that it is the photographer instead of someone else that is “doctoring” the photos. This could, of course, lead to the photographer getting a bad name in the business and thus affecting his/her business in a negative way!
So for all of you out there thinking of doing a little “doctoring” yourself with some photos that you have picked up from somewhere, I implore you to…think again and think what it might do to someone else’s career and would you want the same thing done to you and your possible livelihood?
Now there is the question of, is this photo really a “hoax”?
Well true enough, no one that I can see ever said; “this is real” or “this is really what happened” or “look at the funny thing that really happened the other day”. But on the other hand, no one bothered to say it was a “fake” either! The photo has just been added to the end of a series of photos with no explanation, but a “hoax” is said to be:
To trick into believing or accepting as genuine something false and often preposterous
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
So is it really a “Hoax”? I think so and as you can see I am not alone!
To end this report there is still something Very Important that seems to be missing in ALL photo sequences, “real” or “fake”, on ALL of the Websites that I have seen…do you know what that is?
No one has ever shown the Orange Crane pulled out of the water successfully…I would have like to have seen that! So if anyone knows where I can catch a view of that photo please leave a comment and let me know where it can be found!!!
That’s all for me today and I would like to thank HDW, The High Desert Wanderer, very much for all of the research that he helped me with, our conversations about this subject, his “hints” & “tips” that he taught me on spying a “fake” and of course his encouragement and faith that he always seems to have in me, No Matter What!!
*Special Follow Up*
On a post that I did on September 21st about Good Old #756, the ball that Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron’s Home Run Record.
All of the votes are in on whether to Bestow It, Brand It, or Banish It
And the winner is…
BRAND IT! (Permanently brand the ball with an asterisk before sending to Cooperstown).
Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow when HDW will be here posting his next in the series on Art and Design only at…
