# Wait, this image of an F15 over Afghanistan can't be a photo, right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 16, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988 "2013-09-16T17:41:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/41 "2013-09-18T17:10:11Z")
Last quote/reply out of thread-time order. > [@pulykamell](#): > > The EXIF data shows that it was taken by a Nikon D3 at f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO400, with a focal length of 70mm. > > The only thing that looks a little odd to me is the amount of illumination and detail on the pilot’s face, but there could be a secondary light source contained within the cockpit set on a remote trigger. In my opinion, this is probably a single frame and a “real” photograph. > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Italics added. > > Huh? > > Urban myth photoshops? [I don’t think so.](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=651637331513733&l=50b46d2b70) Problem here was, not for the first time, I made a reply to two previous posts in one, despite only quoting the immediately preceding one. My second part about “urban myth” photos was a toss-in for the general trend of the thread, and had no direct connection to the “huh.” My fault, kind of a habit from thinking like we’re all in one room carrying on most of the recent ideas on OP in order… [Plus, it’s not really fair, is it, that posts have to have a semblance of cohesiveness and logic? Must write to mods about that.] My “huh” part still holds, still, after seeing your subsequent reply: > [@pulykamell](#): > > You can remote trigger a flash using any of a variety of methods, most usual being radio. This is a common technique in any photography requiring additional lighting. Mind you, I don’t think that’s happening here. I thought it might be a possibility, but I just think the illumination is natural… I know you were talking about old-hat remote triggering. But, what–a photographer for a beauty shot will light up the cockpit of a concentrating pilot in a battle maneuver, whose eyes are dark adapted and focused on a head up display? > [@Chronos](#): > > I was thinking one exposure for the pilot, one for the plane, and maybe one for the background. The result would of course require some Photoshop cut-and-paste to assemble them together without visible seams, but nothing that can’t be done by a skilled user, especially if they had more than 3 frames to pick and choose from. > > It could also be done from a single exposure, which would require a different set of manipulations to make it work… Concur. **Chronos** , continued: > [@](#): > > **Leo Bloom** , what do you mean by “urban myth photoshops” there? **pulykamell** was saying that there might have been a flash bulb inside the cockpit, timed to illuminate the pilot’s face for this picture… See above about priorities in battle and pilot needs. About my add-on comment with link to goofy Photoshop: **Chronos** : > [@](#): > > …That’d be a fairly straightforward bit of photographic technology, and would bear no relationship to Photoshop at all, nor to the picture you linked. **pulykamel** : > [@](#): > > …,I think you’re missing my point. My point was that the same dose of healthy skepticism that is applied to photos on the Internet, such that everyone seems to scream “FAKE!” at any reasonably well-executed photo, even if it is real, is not applied to the tons of urban legends out there like “Obama is a secret Muslim” or “Congress is trying to pass an email tax” or “Forward this email and Bill Gates will pay you $X,” etc. Why are people skeptical about stuff that is real, while stuff that is so obviously fake gets passed on as truth? Obviously Obama riding horsey with Putin is not a grey-zone “photo” proof of anything. Thank goodness for that, that it is obviously fake and I assume is not passed off as fake or assumed to be so. Your point that even a “well-executed photo” is actually begging the question of “even if it is real…” (add a query mark :)). The xkcd cartoon makes your point in a nice absurd fashion. The debate (and at least to me, conclusion) in this very thread of the veracity of the photo also brings up two points, one you make and one I infer. “Veracity” now contains ever-allowable manipulations. Obviously, and not to get into philosophy of representation, any image, and the photographer’s from the beginning, is manipulated in processing. Acceptance of the lack-of-“reality” (according to Nabokov, the only word that must always have quotes around it) of photos dates, perhaps, to the pre-modernist, early-20th smudging of negatives to make the photos look “painterly.” But the viewers appreciated that fact. I’ll grab a more recent phenomenon, the appreciation of which has changed over time, and which speaks more closely to your question. Some of us growing up closely observing nudies in Playboy (stay with me here :)), if we were sophisticated in the way of the world, eventually noticed that the nipples and pubic hair weren’t, you know, _right_, that they (frustratingly) were gauzed out. We _knew_. Today: tell-all celeb mags reveal how celebs look without airbrushed foreheads and wrinkle lines, skin tone, whatever. The articles are interesting, and sell magazines or Web clicks, precisely because they’re revelations, and in casual scanning we accept that the manipulated images are the way they look. Next time you see a movie ad with an actor with a gun, notice that the arm/hand with the gun is shot separately and re-attached with–if you think about it–a more detailed and sometimes enlarged and even absurdly foreshortened variation. Every one. I only noticed this a few years ago. The point is I suddenly realized the non-veracity, given the previous assumptions, of the image. The viewers’ ease of excepting such imagery is endemic now. At least when photographic imagery was hard to come-by or reproduce, a Collier’s illustrated news was understood to be hand-drawn, and thus not “documentary” “like photos” with machine-like precision and accuracy that today is \*still assumed to be valid and un-manipulated \* by almost everybody. There’s a reason “reality-news” “recreations” by actors with scripts on TV reporting crimes or other interesting events are mocked and considered, if not cheesy, poor information sources. (The movie _Natural Born Killers_ has a perfect commentary on that.) We still trust and understand, within normal limits of journalism, the “multi-media” portions of the on-line NYTimes for what it is. Yet of course the Times will print head-shots of celebs, ads, and all matter of imagery that raises these questions. Suspicion of the veracity of documents from the US Government may be obsessive for some, but is not out of bounds, even for those not living in the old Stalin or current N. Korea states of one-by-one disappearing officials, or when viewing Iranian photos of their missile launches.) One challenges anything to a lesser or greater extent–not just imagery, of course–from the Government (or any corporate source), uncritical mass emails, as well as forwards from your Mom. Or Wiki. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/42 "2013-09-18T18:26:43Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Cool photos. Certainly dramatic, although I have no reason to doubt they’re genuine. I presume the photographer would be in another jet, just ahead? Interesting. The USAF does not let enlisted ride in fighters. Or at least, they didn’t a few years back. The credit goes to a S/Sgt for the picture who would have had to been backseating in a F15 to keep up with the target plane. That’s needs explaining. And, there’s no additional structures visible, like those that should be part of the chase plane the photographer was in. Strange. I’m betting the AC was photoshopped in. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/43 "2013-09-18T19:11:01Z")
\*\*Leo \*\* - I’m only making a general point about the believability of photography in the age of Photoshop. I already said healthy skepticism is warranted, but there is nothing about this picture,IMHO, that is inconsistent with a single exposure. I am not saying it’s definitely real–I’m not a forensic image specialist–but as a photographer who had taken around one million photos, there is nothing particularly unbelievable about it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/44 "2013-09-18T19:12:02Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Interesting. The USAF does not let enlisted ride in fighters. Or at least, they didn’t a few years back. The credit goes to a S/Sgt for the picture who would have had to been backseating in a F15 to keep up with the target plane. That’s needs explaining. And, there’s no additional structures visible, like those that should be part of the chase plane the photographer was in. Strange. I’m betting the AC was photoshopped in. I believe this was already explained above by someone who has experience with it, and that it would have been taken from a tanker craft. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/45 "2013-09-18T19:44:16Z")
One last thing. [Here’s a video of F15s dropping flares.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh6_i5sd2ck) And [this is a screen grab I made](http://www.pawinskiphotography.com/public/f15grab.png) from that video, unprocessed. Compare that with the cleaner version of the [photo in the OP](http://www.ultimatesacrificeheroes.com/images/DOD%20PHOTO%20(DoD%20photo%20by%20Staff%20Sgt.%20Aaron%20Allmon,%20U.S.%20Air%20Force%20Released)%20%20081215-F-7823A-131.JPG). I don’t see any reason to think it’s not a single frame. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/46 "2013-09-18T20:05:26Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > The USAF does not let enlisted ride in fighters. Or at least, they didn’t a few years back. A guy I knew lied about a hardship case, I guess in the 1960’s and they flew him home in a two guy aircraft. The interesting anecdote is that the pilot said, “Do not pull the red bar. See the red bar? Do not pull the red bar.” Friend asked, “How will I know if we have to eject?” “You will see me go by the cockpit.” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988/47 "2013-09-19T15:42:39Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > \*\*Leo \*\* - I’m only making a general point about the believability of photography in the age of Photoshop. I already said healthy skepticism is warranted, but there is nothing about this picture,IMHO, that is inconsistent with a single exposure. I am not saying it’s definitely real–I’m > not a forensic image specialist–but as a photographer who had taken around one million photos, there is nothing particularly unbelievable about it. Oh, I knew. Just was into writing out a thought at the time. With me, at least, Length of reply post != Fierceness of “disagreement” or rabid importance of issue replied to. In fact, the time spent on my post cost -$1.50 (my half-price subway fare) + $22.50 cab fare to an appointment I otherwise could have taken the train to if I hadn’t written it. Many morals there… Leo [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-this-image-of-an-f15-over-afghanistan-cant-be-a-photo-right/668988.md?page=2)