The World's Most Inspirational Iceberg Is a Fake (opens in new tab)

(nautil.us)

82 pointssignaler10y ago26 comments

26 comments

I was curious if there were any real iceberg pictures. I think I found a few:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthpicturegalleries/...

http://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special...

> We’re still making sales. It’s approaching $1 million. I get about 40 percent of that. It put my kids through college.

Wow. Can a stock image still achieve that kind of earnings in today's commodified market?

AtlasLion10y ago

It started selling way before digital photography, that could explain a lot of it.

stevesearer10y ago

Just found another article which describes other popular stock photos that continue to sell and most of them are older, pre-digital photos as well.

>The record for a single sale, he says, was about $35,000. “It still brings in some hefty money,” he says. [1]

[1] http://www.pdnonline.com/features/Stock-Photos-That-Ke-1294....

1 more reply

bcraven10y ago

Here's a video with the photographer about the image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NeyTEO_JP0

Animats10y ago

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

thyrsus10y ago

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

protomyth10y ago

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

1 more reply

jldugger10y ago

It's also lit from below, because you know, the ocean floor is bright and reflective.

afterburner10y ago

And the bottom of such a huge iceberg can't possible be as well lit as if the sun was hitting it from below. (And of course it looks like that because it's an above water shot, flipped.)

kaffeemitsahne10y ago

(And of course it looks like that because it's an above water shot, flipped.)

Doh. I was imagining him actually flipping an iceberg upside-down for some reason.

gene-h10y ago

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.

elchief10y ago

"see water" heh

jberryman10y ago

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.

theandrewbailey10y ago

That blue is unearthly.

like this: http://www.alexcornell.com/antarctica/ and this: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tonyt/Tonys_site/My_Albums/Pag...

stevesearer10y ago

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

jberryman10y ago

Ha I love that story! Very postmodern

bmm6o10y ago

"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.

prewett10y ago

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.

aaron69510y ago

Other than being fake in every photographic sense it's also scientifically fake.

Obviously icebergs don't have that much under the water and they look significantly different in the underwater section.

I couldn't see it getting much faker.

bmm6o10y ago

> Obviously icebergs don't have that much under the water

The popular notion that 90% is underwater is approximately correct: http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=iipHowMuchOfAnIcebergIs.... Or are you claiming that the picture in question doesn't represent a 10/90 split?

nkurz10y ago

Obviously icebergs don't have that much under the water

What do you mean, and in what sense is this obvious?

pcunite10y ago

If it looks too good to be true ...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

26 comments

prewett10y ago

I was curious if there were any real iceberg pictures. I think I found a few:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthpicturegalleries/...

http://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special...

GBond10y ago

> We’re still making sales. It’s approaching $1 million. I get about 40 percent of that. It put my kids through college.

Wow. Can a stock image still achieve that kind of earnings in today's commodified market?

AtlasLion10y ago

It started selling way before digital photography, that could explain a lot of it.

stevesearer10y ago

Just found another article which describes other popular stock photos that continue to sell and most of them are older, pre-digital photos as well.

>The record for a single sale, he says, was about $35,000. “It still brings in some hefty money,” he says. [1]

[1] http://www.pdnonline.com/features/Stock-Photos-That-Ke-1294....

1 more reply

bcraven10y ago

Here's a video with the photographer about the image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NeyTEO_JP0

Animats10y ago

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

thyrsus10y ago

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

protomyth10y ago

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

1 more reply

jldugger10y ago

It's also lit from below, because you know, the ocean floor is bright and reflective.

afterburner10y ago

And the bottom of such a huge iceberg can't possible be as well lit as if the sun was hitting it from below. (And of course it looks like that because it's an above water shot, flipped.)

kaffeemitsahne10y ago

(And of course it looks like that because it's an above water shot, flipped.)

Doh. I was imagining him actually flipping an iceberg upside-down for some reason.

gene-h10y ago

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

elchief10y ago

"see water" heh

jberryman10y ago

theandrewbailey10y ago

That blue is unearthly.

like this: http://www.alexcornell.com/antarctica/ and this: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tonyt/Tonys_site/My_Albums/Pag...

stevesearer10y ago