Posted on 09/21/2011 5:30:20 AM PDT by Lucky9teen
Edited on 09/21/2011 12:38:49 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Over the last few hours a photo has begun to circulate on the blogs showing Obama supposedly at the “Open Government Partnership” conference today committing an egregious gaffe by raising his hand to block the face of another world leader.
Here’s a link to the MSNBC photoblog where most bloggers first noticed the image; and here’s the URL of the image itself:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/125682969/Getty-Images-News
Now, many veterans of the Great Photoshop Wars of 2003-2010 will take one look at this photo and see about a hundred things “wrong” with it. Not only does Obama’s hand seem Photoshopped into the image, but Obama himself seems to have been awkwardly pasted in. In fact, under closer inspection, about half the people in the image appear to have been inserted artificially; in other words, the whole scene looks to be constructed almost from scratch.
But I wondered: Since this photo can be found on an MSNBC site, are they punking the blogs — or did somebody manage to punk MSNBC and pass off a hoax photo as the real thing?
So, following the lead in the image’s credit line — “Allan Tannenbaum-Pool / Getty Images” — I went straight to the supposed source…and to my utter astonishment, I discovered that the image is indeed from Getty Images and can be found on their site:
Getty Images — Title: Obama Meets With World Leaders At The United Nations
Here’s how it appears on the Getty Images page, with their watermark over the picture:
And here’s the official Getty caption:
Caption: NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 20: U.S. President Barack Obama waves while standing with aother leaders during the Open Government Partnership event at the United Nations September 20, 2011 in New York City.
It still looks fake to me, but that would mean that Getty itself is now putting out faked photos — which is extremely unlikely, especially after the number of times other news wire services were burned by untrustworthy stringers.
The image’s authenticity is further confirmed by the existence on the Getty site — which serves as sort of a “raw feed” of news photos which subscribing editors can browse through — of an “alternate take” photo showing a slight close-up of Obama in the group shot, this time with his hand not blocking his neighbor’s face:
Getty Images — Title: United Nations General Assembly Coverage:
And then there’s this shot, another out-take without the offending hand:
So, what this all means is:
Unless this is some kind of hoax of unparalleled proportions, the gaffe-tastic photo of Obama idiotically waving his hand in a group shot of world leaders, blocking the face of one of them (Tsakhia Elbegdorj, the president of Mongolia, as far as I can tell), really is an authentic photo, and is worthy of Internet infamy.
Have at it!
(And if you have any evidence to the contrary, that it really is Photoshopped somehow, and that the hoax fooled Getty Images, MSNBC, and several other news outlets, please present your evidence in the comments section; in a sense, that’d be even more newsworthy than the already-known fact that our President is a clueless narcissist.)
or an alien? Like in other-world alien?
Maybe THAT'S why no BC...or college records or past girlfriends or college grads who remember him, and no photo in grad. book, or ....
;o)
So if the photo isn’t Photoshopped, then it’s just Barry himself who is Photoshopped.
Apparently the gentleman who got blocked by his hand is the leader of Mongolia.
You can express your condolences to him on our rude President here:
http://www.president.mn/eng/contact/writeLetter.php
I’m a PhotoShop expert, and I enlarged the photo to the pixel level. I don’t see any signs of it being PhotoShopped or altered. One of the most difficult parts of PhotoShopping a photo is to match the resolution. When a photo is greatly enlarged, the edges become “fuzzy” and blend into one another. The degree of the “fuzziness” of edges in a photo is very difficult to duplicate, and discrepancies can be seen when the photo is greatly enlarged. My money says’ it’s real.
What . a . jackass!
I am a professional working photographer. Getty would not intentionally publish a Photoshopped image. The photographer that submitted it would “never work in this town again.”
You have to understand that in the photojournalist world, Getty pretty much owns the market.
I agree... I believe it is real, but not the only picture from the photo-op just one he looks like an idiot. I believe he was waving to someone prior to the actual photo. As you can see in later photos no hand. Usually with large groups you take lots of pictures because many won’t turn out. (blinking, looking wrong direction, goof balls waving, etc.) Just funny they published this one...
Ann, did you look at the actual story which includes links to the image at the Getty website, complete with the Getty watermark. Either the leading image repository for the news services was duped with what you insist is a fake picture OR Obama really is that narcissistic and inconsiderate and oblivious.
Well..at least he’s not bowing..
Aw man.. you beat me with lootie >.< lol :)
Yes, it’s photoshopped. The original had Obama doing bunny ears on the guy in front of him.
Alfred E. Obama
“Mister photographer, can I go to the baffrooom??? I can’t hold it any longer.”
See getty images at link in article.
Yep, he thinks it's all about boz0.
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