Is The Tale Of The Monster Hog Just A Cock-And-Bull Story?
By now, you've surely heard the tale of the 11-year-old boy, the three-hour chase, and the biggest hog you ever saw. CBSNews.com, along with seemingly every other media outlet in the known universe, ran the story of Jamison Stone's successful bagging of the allegedly 1,051 pound monstrosity pictured above.
And now: Scandal! Well, sorta. A Web site called "Stinky Journalism" is calling the photos that appeared in media outlets "obvious fakes, as our in-house photo experts and an NYU physicist attest." (The Stinky Journalism site seems to be down, so we're linking to Deadspin's post on the incident. They got a statement from Stinky J. off a message board.) For specifics, check out Fox News' piece on the dustup, as well as the Stone family's response to the haters.
To try to get to the bottom of this pressing issue, I've called in James Morris, CBSNews.com senior designer and the man behind one of my favorite Public Eye posts ever. Here's his analysis:
There are a few quite simple tricks for telling if a picture has been photoshopped. The most simple of these: if part of one image was enlarged, or brought in from a second photo, there would be tell-tale pixelation (jagged or soft areas) in the photo when it is blown up to great detail. When inspected, this picture didn't show any evidence of basic manipulation as far as I can tell. I think the picture is misleading though, for two, less sinister reasons:1. The kid is almost certainly kneeling in the picture. It appears at first that he is standing and leaning on the hog, when in fact I suspect he is leaning on his knee, which you can just make out below his elbow. When one first considers it, the hog looks almost prehistoric because the boy seems to be standing; when one realizes he is probably kneeling, it merely looks huge.
2. A simple optical trick called 'forced perspective' seems to be at work here. This technique was used in many older films, before special effects, to make things appear larger or smaller than they naturally are. It was used recently in Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings movies to make the hobbit actors appear 3 feet tall. (Here is an in depth explanation of how it works.) Essentially, in a case like this, it involves filming Object A some distance behind Object B. Using basic composition and depth of field manipulation, you appear to collapse the distance between them, making them appear to be the same distance from the lens.
The family claims the hog was 9'4" from snout to rump, and that the kid is 5'5". Additional photos on their site, monsterpig.com, seem to confirm this. The image below illustrates what a 5'5" boy would look like if he was standing next to, rather than behind, the hog. Based on the boy's size in the photo relative to the illustration, I would guess he is kneeling at least a couple of yards behind the hog. Maybe even kneeling on some raised ground or a tree stump. Our mind naturally normalizes the boy's height, which tricks us into thinking the hog is bigger than it is.
My verdict: The hog is clearly huge, just not quite as huge as it appears in the famous photo. I expect the illusion was mostly unintentional on the part of the photographer, at least beyond the usual efforts we all make to compose our everyday snapshots to make ourselves appear a bit more dramatic or flattering.
(CBS/AP)
