The Hoax Photo Archive: Staged Scene

About the
Hoax Photo Archive

Images are categorized by theme, technique of fakery, and time period. Click on a thumbnail for more details about each photo. 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.

Techniques of
Photo Fakery

There are six basic techniques of faking a photo:

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, adjusting the color, resizing details, or rotating or moving details.

4: falsifying the caption.

5: Staging the scene. This is considered fakery particularly 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.

The Hoax Photo Archive
A catalog of photo fakery throughout history

Years Archived:
1840-1900 | 1900-1919 | 1920-1939 | 1940-1959 | 1960-1979 | 1980-1999 | 2000-2004 | 2005-Present

Staged Scene

Portrait of the Photographer as a Drowned Man. The first fake photo ever created: Hippolyte Bayard pretending to be a suicide victim. (1840)	The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Cannonballs were strewn across a road to enhance the drama of this melancholy war scene. (April 23, 1855)	Street Urchins Tossing Chestnuts. The chestnut, which is barely visible in the thumbnail, is suspended from a fine piece of thread. (1857)
Interior of the Secundra Bagh. Human bones were disinterred and scattered around to recreate the aftermath of a battle. (March or April 1858)	A Sharpshooter’s Last Sleep. Civil War photographers used a corpse as a movable prop. (Taken in 1863. Exposed as a fake in 1961.)	The Martyr Lincoln. One of many fake death photos of President Lincoln. (late 1860s)
The Rope Trick. This model is not really sitting on a swing. (ca. 1888)	A Bear and its Hunters. A humorous example of a staged scene. (ca. 1900)	Pacific Sea Monster. Men in Ballard, Washington pose with a sea serpent that looks suspiciously like a log. (1906)
The Cottingley Fairies. Two young girls used paper cutouts to create a series of images of "fairies." These images are among the most famous fake photos of all time. (1917-1920)	Bloody Sunday, 1905. Soviet textbooks claimed this was a photo of 1905's Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg. It was actually a reenactment of that event. (1925)	Mother Cat Stops Traffic. The news photographer arrived too late to capture the original scene, so he convinced the policeman to recreate it. (July 29, 1925)
Death in the Air. Spectacular images of World War I dog fights were eventually exposed as photos of model airplanes. (Published in 1933; debunked in 1984.)	The Surgeon’s Photo. This is considered to be the most famous image of the Loch Ness Monster. It actually shows a fake serpent's head attached to a toy submarine. (Reportedly taken on April 19, 1934.)	Whopper Hoppers. Giant grasshoppers were particularly popular subjects for tall-tale postcards during the 1930s. (circa 1935)
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