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
Staged Scene
(Return to front page of database)

Portrait of the Photographer as a Drowned Man
Staged
1840



The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Staged
April 23, 1855



Street Urchins Tossing Chestnuts
Staged
1857



Interior of the Secundra Bagh
Possibly staged
March or April 1858



A Sharpshooter’s Last Sleep
Staged Scene
Taken in 1863. Exposed as a fake in 1961.



The Martyr Lincoln
Staged using lookalike
late 1860s



The Rope Trick
Staged
ca. 1888



A Bear and its Hunters
Staged
ca. 1900



Pacific Sea Monster
Staged with a log
1906



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



Bloody Sunday, 1905
Staged reenactment
1925



Mother Cat Stops Traffic
Staged Scene
July 29, 1925



Death in the Air
Staged with models
Published in 1933; debunked in 1984.



The Surgeon’s Photo
Staged with a model
Reportedly taken on April 19, 1934.



Whopper Hopper
Fake (wooden model)
Unknown. Probably circa 1935.


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