Fauxtography: Tricks for Recognizing Fauxtography

Look Mom, No Photoshop!
Fun Fauxtography Tricks You Can Try At Home
Just Don't Hoax the Media!
by Rhonda Roland Shearer

[ABOVE: Who needs Photoshop? The optical illusion, called "forced perspective," fools the eye and brain into wrongly interpreting objects that are large and far away, as small and near. After a glance, one quickly recognizes that the spray of water that appears to be shooting out of the soda can is actually a water fountain in the distance that was aligned just right by the photographer.]

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Now You Too Can Spot Fauxtography
First in a series

Who knew that optical illusions can be so diverse in the application of the principle called, "forced perspective?"

Click on the following link [A Perfect Shot] to go to the 12 images in the Stinky Journalism album that were collected from the Internet by Polish bloggers.

The album includes many clever variations of the theme that exploits the ambiguity of size cues in a two-dimensional image. An ant walking around the edge of the drinking cup is not alone. It is accompanied by what looks like a tiny flying helicopter--that is actually a full-size helicopter in the distance aligned just right. The eye and brain are confronted by conflicting information and continue to make the wrong guesses about the ant, cup and helicopter sizes.

The fundamental demand pressed by almost all 12 photos --Is the object near or far away? Since all the objects are flat in any photo, only certain spacial cues help us to properly interpret what we are "seeing" or what is "real.

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MORE investigative goodness at Stinky Journalism.

by Rhonda Roland Shearer
images: Stinky Journalism