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Photos: Pictures that lie

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  • Trotsky's elimination

    Trotsky's elimination

    Leon Trotsky. Now you see him. Now you don't. After he ran afoul of the Communist Party, Trotsky was eliminated from photos where he mingled with other officials. In other manipulated photos, the Soviets painted in the gaps for added realism.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Modeling Martha

    Modeling Martha

    There's a good reason Martha Stewart looks slightly different here. The body belongs to a model. And Newsweek is not the only offender in this area. Texas Monthly once used a model's body with the head of one-time governor, Ann Richards.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Man flying

    Man flying

    The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung ran this picture in its 1934 April Fool's Day edition. The paper explained that the picture showed a new invention that allowed men to fly using their own lung power as the sole source of propulsion. The picture was picked up and widely distributed in the United States by International News Photo.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Hopper

    Hopper

    Photographer Frank D. "Pop" Conard of Garden City, Kan., was considered to be the master of the "whopper hopper" genre of postcards. In this image by Conard, a farmer hauls out a particularly large hopper specimen.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Shark attack

    Shark attack

    The dramatic image on the top made its rounds on the Internet in 2001. The shark had been pasted into the bottom of the shot of a hovering U.S. Air Force helicopter.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Overexposure

    Overexposure

    George Bush did indeed need to go to the bathroom and wrote, "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" on a note. But Reuters later admitted that it overexposed portions of the note so that the message stood out better.

    Bush and Sen. John Kerry were subject to fraudulent photos during in the 2004 campaign. One fake photo circulated of Bush reading a book upside down. Another showed Kerry at a rally with with actress Jane Fonda, but that particular encounter never happened.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Martin postcard

    Martin postcard

    A final postcard by "Dad" Martin dating back to 1910. Martin's company, the Martin Post Card Company, was based in Ottawa, Kan. Fliers for his business read, "This is Dad Martin. He has been arrested for hunting. He is a fool about fishing. But wise on photography."

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Jackalope

    Jackalope

    The jackalope is a faux species of antlered rabbit. It is said to be highly aggressive, willing to use its antlers to fight. Thus, it is also sometimes called the "warrior rabbit." In this doctored picture, which appeared on a postcard of indeterminate age, a pair of jackalope scan the horizon of a field in Colorado.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Pyramids in a pinch

    Pyramids in a pinch

    National Geographic squeezed the Great Pyramids of Giza together to better fit the magazine's format in 1982.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Faking diversity

    Faking diversity

    The University of Wisconsin wanted a picture that reflected diversity at the campus back in 2000, so they put a 1994 photo of a black student, Diallo Shabazz, into a 1993 shot from a football game.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

  • Kicking the habit

    Kicking the habit

    "Goodnight Moon," and goodbye cigarette. If you have an older copy of the kids classic "Goodnight Moon," you'll notice something different between the photo of illustrator Clement Hurd on the dust jacket and the photo here. The cigarette is missing. HarperCollins eliminated it. Now, it looks like Hurd is trying to get someone to repay him 20 bucks.

    Caption by: Bill Detwiler

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Photograph alteration has a long, seedy history. Digital technology, however, is taking the art to new levels.

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Trotsky's elimination

Leon Trotsky. Now you see him. Now you don't. After he ran afoul of the Communist Party, Trotsky was eliminated from photos where he mingled with other officials. In other manipulated photos, the Soviets painted in the gaps for added realism.

Caption by: Bill Detwiler

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