Fake Fort Stockton Foto
And speaking of local photography, you may have seen this photo and caption via forwarded email:
When the lightning flashes, this is NOT what you want to see…
Taken Thursday night, April 3, 2008
Lariat # 2 Sandridge Energy
South of Ft Stockton, TX
Cool photo, huh? Except it's a fake. Sort of. That's a real drilling rig, and it's quite likely that it was photographed somewhere around Fort Stockton. And the photo of the tornado and lightning is also the real deal. They just weren't taken at the same time. According to Snopes.com, the weather photo was taken in Florida in 1991. Someone went to a fair amount of trouble to combine the two.
I immediately spotted it as a fake, however. The dead giveaway? The trees, of course. ;-)
I clicked on your link about the photo being taken in Florida, and now snopes says it was taken in Missouri in 2006, kinda strange huh.
Posted by: Tami Hamill at May 20, 2008 03:27 PMTami, the Snopes entry was addressing the claim that this photo was taken in Missouri. If you scroll down to the end of the page, they detail the origin of the photo.
It's been around a long time, and a number of different stories have arisen as to its origin.
Posted by: Eric at May 20, 2008 03:32 PMThanks for the post pointing out, what to many of us was the obvious. I rec'd this from many people and got tired of telling them to look at the flags...how many times have you seen limply hanging flags with a tornado a few hundred yards away?
Posted by: Wallace at May 20, 2008 10:52 PMI haven't been that close to a tornado so I wouldn't know about the wind conditions. (There is such a thing as "the calm before the storm," but I certainly don't know how applicable it is.)
I've done enough Photoshopping to spot the telltale signs. I just looked at the cloud bank behind the derrick, and how it disappeared in spaces between the girders.
That, and the trees... ;-)
Posted by: Eric at May 21, 2008 08:08 AMEric, I've sent you an e-mail with both images on it. Enjoy ..... and feel free to start forwarding it :-)
Posted by: Jeff at May 21, 2008 08:36 AMJeff, the variation was pretty funny; thanks for sharing it.
Posted by: Eric at May 21, 2008 10:48 AMSo could you share the variation with the rest of us?
Posted by: Darrell Ward at May 22, 2008 07:03 AMDarrell, I didn't save it, but I'm sure Jeff can email it to you. However, anyone who's familiar with the Wizard of Oz can guess what scene was Photoshopped into the sky just in front of the tornado.
Posted by: Eric at May 22, 2008 08:05 AMDarrell, I'll be happy to.
Posted by: Jeff at May 22, 2008 08:56 AMAbout the publisher
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Eric, I continue to be amazed by the strange and continuing life of this photo ..... and now you tell me it has reached Snopes? That's wild.
This photo was circulated among oil-and-gas people in West Texas during the early spring. The problem is, later mailings only have the first of TWO PHOTOS (this one), and no tongue-in-cheek warnings of Photoshop Phakery. It's when you click on the second photo that the gag really kicks-in, with an item that doesn't appear in your photo.
I still get a chuckle from the photos, but the persistence of this mailing is truly amazing.
Posted by: Jeff at May 20, 2008 01:16 PM