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: Politics
(Return to front page of database)

Petticoat Politics
Fake (composite)
May 1865



Lincoln’s Portrait
Fake (composite)
Late 1860s



The Martyr Lincoln
Staged using lookalike
late 1860s



Trotsky Vanishes
Fake (deleted person)
Taken in 1919; altered ca. 1967



Bloody Sunday, 1905
Staged reenactment
1925



Wisconsin’s Capitol Collapses
April Fool's Day joke
April 1, 1933



Baby Adolf
Fake (altered in darkroom)
Late 1933



The Perambulating Skull
Staged
May 1936



The Commissar Vanishes
Fake (deleted person)
ca. 1940



The Tydings Affair
Fake (composite)
1950



White Hot Mama
Fake (composite)
July 1992



Bush Reads Book Upside-Down
Fake (digitally altered)
Found online, September 2002.



Leftist Patriot
Fake (digitally altered)
Circulating online since 2002.



Trophy Turkey
Misleading (captions omitted relevant details)
Thanksgiving 2003



Hanoi John
Fake (composite)
Circulating online since Feb 2004


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