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

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)	The Perambulating Skull. Arthur Rothstein was accused of using a steer's skull as a movable prop in order to exaggerate drought conditions in the Great Plains. (May 1936)
The Master Race. The British Army created this picture of an unkempt German soldier as part of its propaganda efforts. (May 8, 1943)	Red Army Flag Over Reichstag. This photo was both staged and doctored in an attempt to create a Soviet version of the Americans' Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima image. (May 2, 1945)	The Kiss at City Hall. Robert Doisneau admitted in 1993 that he paid models to stage this romantic Parisian scene. (April 1, 1950)
Venusian Scoutcraft. What George Adamski claimed was a photo of a UFO looks suspiciously like a lampshade with ping pong balls glued to it. (December 13, 1952)	The Peppered Moth. The many biology textbooks that used this image did not reveal that the moths were dead and glued to the bark. (1955)	The Bluff Creek Bigfoot. Bigfoot believers claim this is a photo of that elusive North American primate. Skeptics argue it shows a person in an ape suit. (October 20, 1967)
Francis Hetling’s Victorian Waifs. These photos of Victorian-era street children turned out to be modern frauds. (1974)	Yeah Eckerd. The news photographer staged the scene by having a fan write the phrase "Yeah Eckerd" on the soles of his feet. (1981)	The Case of the Moving Pyramids. In what became the first high-profile example of digital photo manipulation, National Geographic moved the pyramids slightly closer together to fit within the frame of the cover. (February 1982)
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