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The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

nautil.us

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Re: The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

#11

Post by prewett »

bmm6o wrote: post #9

"Fake" is a little strong. As he says at the end of the article, you couldn't capture an image like that with a single photograph. He strove for accuracy, but who knows how close he got - the article doesn't go into that. His clients thought it was realistic enough and evocative enough to give him $1m.

The image purports to show a mass of hidden iceberg underneath the water. What it show instead is two above-water icebergs, one of which was flipped upside-down. That is totally fake in my book. If it happens to be accurate (and like you say, we have no information about that), it might correctly illustrate the idea, but the photograph is still fake.

Re: The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

#13

Post by gene-h »

Now the interesting thing to do would be to take one of these iceberg pictures for real. Since we can't see through this much see water the thing to do is make a huge grid of cameras and put it directly up against the iceberg.

Alternatively, once could lower a line of cameras to scan the iceberg.

Re: The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

#17

Post by protomyth »

thyrsus wrote: post #15
Animats wrote: post #8

I never saw that image before, and it's obviously fake. You just can't see through that much seawater.

I've seen the image several times, and I'd always assumed it was a painting, using photo-realist techniques.

Yeah, I thought it was someone that does the background painting for movies. The physics of taking that photograph just didn't seem possible.

Re: The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

#18

Post by elchief »

gene-h wrote: post #13

Now the interesting thing to do would be to take one of these iceberg pictures for real. Since we can't see through this much see water the thing to do is make a huge grid of cameras and put it directly up against the iceberg. Alternatively, once could lower a line of cameras to scan the iceberg.

"see water" heh

Re: The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake

#19

Post by stevesearer »

jberryman wrote: post #12

icebergs turn over quite often, as the seawater eats away at the bottom until they become top-heavy. When they do you get that really strange brilliant blue color which comes from dense glacial ice which has had all the air bubbles forced out.

Here was a funny recent story regarding different iceberg photos with that effect: http://petapixel.com/2015/02/03/contest-copyright-controvers...
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