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There will be blood - Photo Analysis
- jamesaguilar 13y agoI know of allegations that Palestinians frequently make stuff up about their war zone (which does not take away from the real harm that they endure at the hands of the Israelis, but does make it hard to evaluate the extent of that harm). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awYMPzSrh5o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awYMPzSrh5o Maybe that is simply common to all war zones? People want to draw arms and money to their side of the war, so it makes sense to do whatever you can to engender empathy in the viewer. It's just another form of propaganda. But props for doing this breakdown and helping us recognize it for what it is.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- amasad 13y agoThe term "Pallywood" would also be a form of propaganda, possibly a stronger one given the high budget production like the video you linked to.
- wfunction 13y agoIs it really just me who thinks it's obvious as day that this is red paint? The blood is way too red. And it starts on her forehead... where? Nowhere.
- pcurve 13y agoBlood can be very red. But from what I see, blood from facial cuts should be more watery in consistency. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/09/article-0-026890B8000005DC-888_468x392.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/11/09/article-0-026890B8... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zOUSe8DKLjk/S0ebhT-SvXI/AAAAAAAAAAw/PUIeXHmTdu0/s1600-h/pacquiao.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zOUSe8DKLjk/S0ebhT-SvXI/AAAAAAAAAA... http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2011/2/3/2011-634323337911015008-101.jpg http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2011/2/3/2011-6343233...
- Sunlis 13y agoYou have to take into account sweat as well. A boxer's face is probably going to be sweaty as they exert themselves quite a bit during a fight. As a result, the blood is going to get watered down. I tried to find pictures to verify my idea, but every head injury picture I found was of an athlete.
- srean 13y agoThe first time it happened it came as a shock to me just how bright red blood can be and just how fast it can bleed from a cut on the head. The color is startlingly different from the color I am used to seeing on cuts on hands and legs. I had read about the fact that arterial / oxygenated blood is brighter, but I never expected it to be that bright. I am very susceptible to vaso-vagal syncopes at the sight of blood so the second surprise was that I did not black out seeing it on my nephew. Maybe adrenaline changes that dynamics. Back to the article, it seems to me it seems that the author strongly wants to believe in a particular hypothesis and trying hard to make a case for it. Not very convinced.
- auctiontheory 13y agoI wasn't there. But I'm unconvinced and a little offended by some of this "reasoning." As far as I can tell, there is no consistent angle that matches all of the blood drips. Why must she have stood (or lain) still while the blood finished dripping? Her eyes show no sign of pain. Have you ever been bombed, or shot, or in a car accident, or fallen down stairs? The pain often doesn't kick in immediately. The pop explanation for that is "adrenalin" - I don't know the scientific reasoning. But it's a very real effect. While I realize you intend your tone to be scientific and dispassionate, it is a little too reminiscent of those you use "rational analysis" to deny, well, just about anything.
- abalone 13y agoI agree that the sheer volume of not completely airtight reasons detracted from its cogency and echoes the style of "conspiracy theories". But for me there was a very solid point that seals the deal: zooming in on the high-resolution source, there were no visible sign of wounds. The blood trickles appear out of nowhere. His "second opinions" agreed on this point as well. It's clearly a fake. The photographer may or may not have been in on it, but the woman sure was.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y agoThere's no implicit claim the blood was her own.
- abalone 13y agoIt's not spatter. It's painted on her like streams bleeding from her own wounds. Only there's no wounds.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y agoIt doesn't have to be spatter, there are lots of possible scenarios where the liquid is being spilled on her from some other source (a small incidental pool), it doesn't make it staged. But maybe we just have different types of imagination :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kevinpet 13y agoDoctors and police are unqualified to have an opinion on what blood looks like? They seem to be the two groups most likely to have an accurate opinion. There's nothing in this article that jumps to conclusions. He's saying it looks off to him. He did some analysis to look for obvious ways it could have been altered and reports that he didn't find any of those. He then investigated the possibility that it's a real but staged photo and offers some possibilities with just slightly more validity than "it looks off" and doesn't overstep the actual data and evidence he has.
- EdwardDiego 13y agoDid you miss the last line? > While it may seem obvious that something is wrong, these issues went unnoticed by a veteran photographer, the Associate Press, and every news outlet that ran the photo. If they are not noticing details like this, then what other forms of media hacking are they not noticing? He concludes 1) It's fake 2) He's smarter than everyone else. It went far beyond "offers some possibilities" way into "making wild assumptions on the basis of a single photo" territory.
- photoJ 13y agoSee earlier history of making strong accusations that were later disproved. http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-world-press-photo-winner-a-fake-photographer-responds/ http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-worl...
- EdwardDiego 13y agoOh wow, same guy? That's a pretty conclusive debunking of his claims...
- _nato_ 13y ago``Believing Is Seeing'' by Errol Morris is a great read for those who are torn here... A great read.
- _nato_ 13y agophoto six: is she wearing braces? If so... is that common over there? I spent the better part of my 2011 paycheck to get Invisalign in my mouth and find that a little odd if that's the case. Maybe Morris' book has officially corrupted me!
- ComputerGuru 13y agoGetting medical/dental work done in a "3rd world country" is ironically so much cheaper and more accessible than it is here in the USA. The quality isn't as great, but you can't have everything in life.
- underwater 13y agoSo his whole argument boils down to him thinking it looks fake? It seems irresponsible to publish accusations like this without any hard evidence and without considering the consequences of being wrong. Studies have shown that people are likely to remember accusations of wrong doing and forget retractions or corrections. His insinuation that either the subject or photographer is "faking it" is damaging their credibility just so this guy can get his kicks playing PhotoShop detective.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y agoIt's likely not her own blood, could have been from the probably crowded ambulance, so you can ignore some things relying on that, swelling, pain, cuts. It's possible she wiped her own eyebrow, and she may have tried to clean her chin while the blood was partially dry (maybe with saliva, diluting the blood a little). It's possible the blood dried at different rates, considering sweat. Either way, it would make a lot more sense to stage this with animal blood rather than acrylics. Edit: posting this here because I agree. Also needs more clear proof on why the blood color is true to camera.
- jontas 13y agoSounds like you didn't read past the first couple of paragraphs.. while he isn't offering any conclusive proof, his argument consists a lot more than "I think it looks fake".
- eli 13y agoYeah, he found some other people who thought it looked fake too.
- pavanred 13y ago> I ran this photo by a few other people: professional photographers and artists. There is no information about who these professionals were, their affiliations, their experience or their expertise. I would rather be interested if this was a detailed post about the analysis of at least one of these professionals, and possibly more interested if they were not anonymous.
- ImprovedSilence 13y agoI enjoyed the analysis, and lots of good points were made, and now has me believing it was faked. But I'll be honest, when I clicked the link, I was kinda hoping for some sort of image processing/hyperspectral article.
- eli 13y agoWhat would the motive be to fake an injury when we all appear to agree there really were injured people there? True or not, this reasoning based on things that cannot be objectively tested smacks of conspiracy theory.
- giorgosts 13y ago100000 people killed, 2200000 refugees (1000000 of them children) and we are talking about a photo instead of taking action to end the war NOW.
- ibudiallo 13y agoI hope everyone sees your comment before even reading the article.
- andrewvc 13y agoWell, there's always something more important to talk about. I think that raising awareness of forgeries in the media is worthwhile.
- yeukhon 13y agoAnd excuse me fake photo can push a war too. Look at the whole Iraq war. Any hard evidences have been disproved after the war. If you think a photo can't kill more people, think about cyberbullying. A single comment can trigger a death. Fake media has a larger effect. And you know the word "propaganda".
- dsego 13y agoWhy aren't you taking action then?
- someone13 13y agoRegardless of all the criticism of the analysis, or whether the analysis is "worth it": this post is a really interesting look into how someone that does photographic forensics professionally operates. I thought it was pretty nifty :)
- photoJ 13y agoMight be slow to trust this as professional forensic analysis. Previous claims, which were more extensive, were refuted by independent review of professionals. From the following article on other case: "The results of the expert analysis are in, and it looks like Hansen’s photo does indeed stand up to serious forensic scrutiny." http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-world-press-photo-winner-a-fake-photographer-responds/ http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-worl...
- xymostech 13y agoPosting the same link and comment five different times in the same thread isn't all that helpful.
- EdwardDiego 13y agoIf you only check replies to your comments, it is.
- abalone 13y agoTotally different. The OP is not claiming the work was photoshopped. In fact, if you actually read the post, he confirms that there's nothing suspicious with the post-processing. He's claiming the subject was fake. She has blood trickles drawn as if coming from wounds on her face (not spatter from someone else). Yet when he uncovered the original high resolution photo and zoomed in, there are clearly no wounds. That's on top of the other issues with the paint looking more like paint than blood on close inspection. But the lack of wounds at the origin of the streams makes it very clear that the streams were painted on. The photographer isn't explicitly implicated in this.. it's possible that he just saw her in the crowd and was tricked too. We don't know.
- photoJ 13y agoAside from speculation, the first question one might ask is simply, are there additional photos? In fact there are: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Syrian-warplanes-bomb-rebel-held-town-20-killed-3791667.php#photo-3334011 http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Syrian-warplanes-bomb... Now the "staging" looks a lot more complicated. Also note that, the photographer won a Pulitzer(which means he's be vetted more thoroughly then most), while this reviewer has a history of making strongly worded claims that are disproved. If interested look at this post which was soundly rebuked, and proved to be misleading. http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/549-Unbelievable.html http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/549-Unb... Note this response: http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-world-press-photo-winner-a-fake-photographer-responds/ http://petapixel.com/2013/05/14/forensics-expert-claims-worl...
- csomar 13y agoCan we stop the negativity toward the forensic expert here? He's doing his job. Trying to find out fake pictures. If you disagree, just give a counter point. Stop the Ad-hominem. Here are my counter-arguments: 1. Blood gets very dry: Not necessarily. Blood requires a sufficient level of platelets to get dry quickly. This can be the case, and it's not a rare condition. (I have it and my nose bleed frequently). 2. Blood color: Same argument. Depend on the constituents of the blood; and whether it's oxygenated or not. 3. Look at her right eye-brow. It looks like she was hit there and blood was bleeding from that place all over her right face. It can be the source of fresh, red blood.
- wozniacki 13y agoWithout casting any aspersions on the veracity of the photo, being talked about, it has to be said that there was plenty of amateur footage making the rounds in the early stages of the conflict, right about the time the UK parliament put the commitment of British forces in a potential military involvement, to vote. The integrity of photos and video evidence (filmed mostly by amateurs in the early stages of the military strikes by Syrian security forces) was disputed. http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/videos-claim-to-show-jabhat-al-nusra.html http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/videos-claim-to-sh... BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre' The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9293620/BBC-News-uses-Iraq-photo-to-illustrate-Syrian-massacre.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9293620/BB... Photos of Syria Chemical Attack Appear to Have Been STAGED http://www.westernfreepress.com/2013/09/13/analysis-photos-of-syria-chemical-attack-appear-to-have-been-staged/ http://www.westernfreepress.com/2013/09/13/analysis-photos-o...
- csomar 13y agoYou are still missing the point. It's not a discussion about media legitimacy, it's a discussion if a photo is fake or not.
- sejje 13y agoRe: wiping, isn't it possible that she wiped it herself initially (as author suggest she would, consciously or not) and then eventually left it alone and it streamed down past where she had wiped?
- Mikeb85 13y agoKeep in mind there has already been precedent for faking photos and videos in the Syria conflict, as well as other conflicts around the world. It's very much in the interest of militants, and other actors (cough Saudis) to topple the Assad regime, and of course the only way to do that is to get the West involved... In Iraq you have Sunni-Shia conflict, and that's pretty much what's going on in Syria right now too (with the same actors funding the conflict behind the scenes...).
- spikels 13y agoWhile the author seems to know something about photo analysis (he believes the photo was not tampered with) he know jack shit about blood or wound analysis. And neither do the "professional photographers and artists" he knows. I find it rather disturbing that someone would suggest that it was staged based on such flimsy evidence. And the subtitle "Just A Flesh Wound" is a reference to an extremely bloody but hilarious scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail - nice. The Syrian Civil War is a tragedy and the civilians are not the villains.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]