The photo above is supposedly of a coyote who “literally froze dead in his tracks” at -28 degrees. (Fahrenheit? Centigrade? The site does not specify.) In reality this photo was achieved by simply putting a stuffed and mounted coyote outside, waiting for it to snow and then photographing it. Warm blooded creatures do not freeze to death “mid-stride”.

Usually when we think of fake photos we think of politics, magazine covers or advertisements, but we hardly ever think about weather. Well, Jesse Ferrell who works for AccuWeather.com is bringing to light some of the fake photos that have plagued the weather community for years (via the infamous email forward), and exposing recent false reports as well. It is a subject he cares about deeply and blogs about with passion, so I already consider him the TLS representative of the weather world. Here are some of Jesse’s blog entries about fake and hoax weather-related photos that I think make for interesting reading…

January 25, 2010 – The Huntington Beach Waterspout Photo Hoax

January 24, 2010 – R U Fooled by Recent Weather Photo Hoaxes?

October 11, 2009 – Weather Channel Fooled by Lightning Photo

July 1, 2009 – National Weather Service Fooled by Fake Storm Reports

April 25, 2006 – Classic Emailed Weather Photo Hoaxes

This Looks Shopped is officially a pop culture t-shirt meme! So order one, damnit!

I was just informed by the fine folks over at the cheezburger network, that a TLS-themed shirt that was inspired by the infamous shark attacking a helicopter shop is their shirt of the day! W0oT! So order one cuz you are awesome and with this shirt you will look even more awesomester!

Thanks for the link love and the pop culture fabric immortality, cheezburger peeps! {{{{HUGZ}}}}

1-22-10 UPDATE: The t-shirt is sold out! Sorry if you missed it. I will let you all know if it becomes available again!

Ok, Jaws, smile pretty for the camera!

Matthew Moore has written an article for the Telegraph called Doctored photos: 20 memorable photo fakes – a rundown of some of the most infamous hoax photos. Some have already been discussed here on this blog, but some have not…

Doctored photos: 20 memorable picture fakes
By Matthew Moore

The doctoring of photos, once considered the reserve of tyrants and UFO nuts, is becoming increasingly widespread.

With photo-editing software becoming ever more sophisticated, and the internet allowing instant distribution, it has never been easier to create and spread hoax images.

Below we present 20 of the most striking, interesting and controversial fake photos, most of them produced in the last five years.

Some were created to amuse, some to mislead, while others were an attempt to rewrite history.

And although the credulity of the internet has been blamed for allowing hoax photos to flourish, several of the fakes below were actually uncovered by bloggers after being distributed by mainstream media outlets.

[read the rest of the article]

I get quite a few email forwards (who doesn’t?), but because of my background I usually get them with a question much like what my co-worker, Kyle, asked me yesterday: Is this Shopped?

What he sent was a combination of 2 forwards that have been making the email rounds for the past few years. Here are the photos and the text that accompanied them…

Text that goes with the first 2 photos:

This picture was taken by a KTBS helicopter flying over Lake Wiess about 90 miles north of Birmingham, Alabama! The helicopter pilot and the game warden were in communication via radio’s here is a transcript of their conversation. ‘Air1 have you a visual on the gator, over’
‘Approaching inlet now, over’
‘Roger Air1′
‘Gator sighted…. Looks like it has a small animal in its mouth.. moving in, over’
‘Roger Air1′
‘It’s a Deer!’
‘confirm Air1.. did you say Deer?, Over’
‘Roger… a Deer in its mouth… looks like a full sized buck… that’s a big gator, were gonna need more men, Over’
‘Roger Air1..can you give me a idea on size of animal, over’
‘Its big 25 feet at least, please advise Gator is heading to inlet… do I pursue?, over’

That has to be a HUGE gator to have a whole deer in its mouth! The deer was later found to be a mature Stag and was measured at 11 feet! Are you ready to go skiing on Lake Wiess?! If you ski at the west end of the lake — try not to fall.

Text that goes with the last photo (on the right):

This alligator was found between Centre and Leesburg , Alabama near a house! Game wardens were forced to shoot the alligator – guess he wouldn’t cooperate…

Anita and Charlie Rogers could hear the bellowing in the night. Their neighbors had been telling them that they had seen a mammoth alligator in the waterway that runs behind their house, but they dismissed the stories as exaggerations.

‘I didn’t believe it,’ Charles Rogers said, but they realized the stories were, if anything, understated.

Alabama Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast. Joe Goff, 6′5′ tall, a game warden, walks past the 28-foot, 1-inch alligator 8.5 metres he shot and killed in their back yard.

So back to Kyle’s original question: Are these images Shopped? Well, the answer is: NO. They are all original images! However, the text that accompanies them is completely false and/or greatly exaggerated. How do I know? Well, when I get email forwards such as this the first thing I do is go to snopes.com. Snopes is a great resource for tracking down the truth behind all kinds of rumors and urban legends. Here is the information it revealed about the first 2 images and the information about the last image.

Although these images are not Shops, they are images being used as evidence to support total falsehoods, and I wanted to address the use of imagery in this manner and show you a resource to be able to debunk such email hoaxes. Just because you got an email forward today does not mean it hasn’t been around awhile and has already been “snoped”. So, be sure you bookmark Snopes and the next time you get an email forward search their site to see if you can find the real story behind it!

There are tons of email forwards that are Shops. They usually have some sort of humor or shock value to them. The most classic example of this is a photo that began circulating back in 2001 that was of a shark attacking a helicopter. It was usually sent with the subject line: “And you think you’re having a bad day at work!” The email forward also stated that it was a National Geographic “photo of the year” award winner. Of course, this was completely untrue as the photo was a total Shop.

The top photo is the one that was in the email forward, and the 2 photos below it were what the Shopper combined to create the hoax image. This Shop is a pretty good job, although as you can see in the original image, a shark jumping out of water pulls an awful lot of spray up with it (by its mouth primarily) which is lacking in the composite. It did a good job of fooling the average email recipient though, and I bet whenever the Shopper saw it in their email box as a forward they got a big laugh out it.

A big shout out to Kyle for the submit!