Fake or Real...you decide

Is the Photo Photoshopped?

  • Yes, looks faked

    Votes: 83 77.6%

  • No, looks real

    Votes: 10 9.3%

  • Can't tell

    Votes: 9 8.4%

  • On planet X and the ME, fake is real.

    Votes: 5 4.7%
  • Total voters
    107
Photoshopping as crude as the one here is rare. In fact, photoshopping at all is probably rare. Much more common are cases where the photo is real, but the events and context represented are not what actually happened, or may even be staged. One infamous case from not too long ago was after a CIA predator strike on Al Qaeda in Pakistan. There was a photo alleging to be remains of the rocket, perched on a crumbling wall, with villagers posing behind it. The obvious problem with the photo, though, was that the supposed rocket remains were not rocket remains at all, but rather an unexploded artillery shell. The difference is clear and unambiguous to anyone with even a little bit of military knowledge, though it takes a bit more digging to figure out that the shell was most likely Pakistani. But even basic military knowledge seems woefully missing from the press, and so they screw things up time and time again. And it makes them particularly susceptible to influence from the side that lies the most, which in this case is Hezballah.

In the current conflict, there have also been reports of an Israeli attack on an ambulance, complete with photos of where a missile supposedly struck the ambulance, right in the middle of the red cross on its roof:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0725-05.htm
Damning photo, isn't it? But there's a small problem: Megan, the author of the article, has been played for a fool. Whatever the hell hit that ambulance, it was most assuredly NOT an Israeli missile. If it were, nobody from that ambulance would be alive, and the ambulance itself would probably be several large chunks of twisted, barely recognizable metal, rather than just a van with a small hole in the roof.

You can see a few more photos here.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?ei=UTF-8&p=lebanon tyre ambulance&fr2=tab-news
Note that where the paint on the rooftop of the ambulance has been blasted away, the underlying metal appears rusted. To my eye, this suggests that the damage was not even recently sustained. The photos are probably all be real, but that doesn't mean that any of them depict what the captions claim.
 
Ok I read the article and seen the pictures. The "possible original" screems "bombed city" enough on it's own so why bother to doctor it? I do not know why but I have some guesses:

*Cash, disasters pay better so someone "improved" on the picture in order to get better paid for it.

*Political anti Israel: An attemt to make Israel look worse.

*Political pro Israel: To delibaretly make a bad doctoring job in order to make ones enemies look bad for faking their propaganda. The idea here would then be to fake the reason above and then have it "exposed".

*I don't know...

My personal bet is the first alternative: Disasters sell. Remember the "concentration camp" photo from the Yugoslavian breakup war? The one that was exposed at being a refugee camp (bad enough) and some residents there photographed throu a fence that actually only sourronded a toolshed, not the whole camp. I woundered what happened to the photograper when that one was exposed for what it was, it could hardly have boosted his career for long...

Beirut are bombed, that is a fact and it's bad. There are however no need for fake images thou, there are enough real ones so any news agency worth it's salt should have no problem finding one of those. Maybe the simple truth are as simple that they no longer spend the money to have their own employees take pictures for them and rely on people selling them material.
 
Makes you wonder about the frequency of iconic "dead children framed against a background of destruction" pictures we are getting in this conflict. Almost like they were being manufactured in some way.

And of course, the almost total lack of any footage of Hizbollah fighters, except for a small number allegedly 'smuggled out' is another cause for concern.
 
RyanRoberts said:
Makes you wonder about the frequency of iconic "dead children framed against a background of destruction" pictures we are getting in this conflict. Almost like they were being manufactured in some way.
Click to expand...
Supposedly, the same guy (Hajj) who doctored this picture also took the photos at Qana for Reuters.
 
Note the pervasive passive voice:
The Reuters news agency issued a statement acknowledging that "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience."

(...snip...)

"As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent," she added. "The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software."
Click to expand...
Emphasis mine. No mention of who doctored the photos.
 
Someone needs to emial Hajj and explain to him the Gaussian and radial blur tools. Both are nice for breaking up rubber stamp patterns.

Since we're on the topic in this thread,The Jawa Report is pointing out some other questionable Hajj photos.

The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping chaffe or flares designed to be a decoy for surface-to-air missiles. However, a close up of what Hajj calls "missiles" reveals that only one flare has been dropped. The other two "flares" are simply copies of the original.
Click to expand...
 
webfusion said:
The actual original (source) version:
...
Click to expand...

crafting-3.jpg
 
Apollyon said:
Supposedly, the same guy (Hajj) who doctored this picture also took the photos at Qana for Reuters.
Click to expand...


The Green Helmet Guy has been identified.

He is a mortician, named Abu Shadi Jradi and he drives a refrigerated truck used for transporting corpses from place to place.

The question which never was answered --- did he drive an empty truck that morning when he arrived in Qana?
 
webfusion said:
The Green Helmet Guy has been identified.

He is a mortician, named Abu Shadi Jradi and he drives a refrigerated truck used for transporting corpses from place to place.

The question which never was answered --- did he drive an empty truck that morning when he arrived in Qana?
Click to expand...

Dang, Webs. You can't just drop a bombshell like that and run off. Give us a link or something!!
 
Last edited:
TheChadd said:
Well he says he was fixing a smudge, plausible.
Click to expand...

Cloning smoke and large portions of the city has nothing to do with fixing a smudge. These weren't small specks of dust being replaced with sky or something, this is large portions of the city being replicated and placed elsewhere. The same thing goes for the smoke. The picture has been deliberately modified to make Beruit look more damaged than it really was. You can see in the posts above other examples of this being done by the same photographer.
 
Mycroft said:
Dag, Webs. You can't just drop a bombshell like that and run off. Give us a link or something!!
Click to expand...

In all fairness, please just google the name.
I don't want to link, because the sites are offering too much in the way of CT and unsupported innuendo, and I don't wish to go down that road again here about Qana.

Suffice it to say, Abu Shadi Jradi is a professional, and his presence in Qana (and Tyre) is well within the proper boundries of his work, and I have seen nothing to indicate he did anything wrong. (Although by googling his name, you'll see some dubious information and some outrageous accusations on the various blogs)

If it can be conclusively shown that he drove 20 or so bodies in his refrigerated truck from Tyre, and added them to the pile at Qana, then you'll have a real bombshell.

How anyone would prove that is beyond me...
 
webfusion said:
In all fairness, please just google the name.
I don't want to link, because the sites are offering too much in the way of CT and unsupported innuendo, and I don't wish to go down that road again here about Qana.
Click to expand...
why not web? Thats exactly what you have been providing so far.

Suffice it to say, Abu Shadi Jradi is a professional, and his presence in Qana (and Tyre) is well within the proper boundries of his work, and I have seen nothing to indicate he did anything wrong. (Although by googling his name, you'll see some dubious information and some outrageous accusations on the various blogs)

If it can be conclusively shown that he drove 20 or so bodies in his refrigerated truck from Tyre, and added them to the pile at Qana, then you'll have a real bombshell.

How anyone would prove that is beyond me...
Click to expand...
Probably nobody can prove it web...but its not going to stop you from believing it and giving the conspiracy theory a real good run on this site.

Its funny how the entire worlds supply of Israeli apologists and warmongers blogs have all become conspiracy theory sites overnight when its the only alternative to having to swallow what is coming out of lebanon.

When the news is intollerable then just close your eyes and chant....It neeeeeever happened it neeeeeeever happened. Its aaaaaal a conspiracy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom