HOLIDAY GAG GIFTS
Everything from the popular Farting Santa to fake Lottery Ticket stocking stuffers.

Techniques of Fakery
There are six basic techniques of faking a photo, none of which are mutually exclusive.

1: Inserting details. This includes placing an element from one photo into another to create a composite image, reproducing a detail of the photo by cloning it, superimposing an image onto another, or drawing-in details.

2: Deleting details. This is usually done by extending background elements over the unwanted detail. Or one can crop out the unwanted detail.

3: Manipulating elements within the photo. For instance, one can adjust the color, resize details, or rotate or move details.

4: falsifying the caption. (In a sense, every fake photo has been falsely captioned.)

5: Staging the scene. This is considered fakery particularly when it occurs in photojournalism. Varieties of staging a scene include using models and cutouts and inserting a prop into the scene.

6: Taking a photo at a trick angle. The most common example of this is the use of forced perspective.


Categories


hoax photo database

The Hoax Photo Database catalogs examples of photo fakery throughout the history of photography, from 1840 to the present. Included in the database are photos that are "real," but which have been suspected of being fake, as well as images whose veracity remains undetermined. The images are listed in chronological order. They are categorized by theme, technique of fakery, and time period. Click on a thumbnail for more details. Other Viewing Options: Full Text Mode.
1840-1900 | 1900-1919 | 1920-1939 | 1940-1959 | 1960-1979 | 1980-1999 | 2000-2004 | 2005-Present
Category: Children
(Return to front page of database)

Street Urchins Tossing Chestnuts
Staged
1857



Ocean Execution
False caption
December 1913



The Cottingley Fairies
Staged using paper cutouts
Two pictures taken in 1917; three more in 1920.



Baby Adolf
Fake (altered in darkroom)
Late 1933



Francis Hetling’s Victorian Waifs
Fake (staged & artificially aged)
1974



Fetal Footprint
Undetermined (probably fake)
Circulating online since mid-2004



Holiday Greetings, from Spain’s Royal Family
Fake (composite)
December 2005


Page 1 of 1 pages

Note: This form searches only the photo database. To search the entire museum, use our google search form.