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Comment by matthewmacleod | Hacker News Reader

This article looks like the rant of someone completely unhinged. It's absolutely fucking wild to me that somebody would invest this amount of effort into investigating the authenticity of some random images ripped from Instagram or a blog.

I'd understand probing someone who had cheated to win a competition—a straight-up wrong act in my view—but I had no idea this particular hobby was filled with people who were quite so sensitive to the authenticity of photographs.

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It seems pretty normal that people react to deception, even if it occurs outside the setting of a formal competition.

What was the deception? I don't see anyone posting any evidence of claims that the photos are undoctored or manipulated and the artist in question makes a career of doing exactly that.

The only deception here is self deception from "journalists" who stole a published her image without bother to do any actual legwork.

I think a normal journalistic reaction to "deception"—a clever word choice on your part—might be to say:

These photos from a random source which got spread widely look like they might be doctored, so we asked the photographer and they admitted/denied they were fabricated, this is why we agree/disagree and why genuine photography matters

Instead we get this ratcheting-up of drama, and I can't help but think encouraging a pile-on of death threats is really a healthy approach.

This is not a random source, and most importantly it is not a source without context.

If she had just posted these pics on her instagram with no comments I would be much more willing to say she never claimed anything and people just jumped on it. I probably wouldn't need to, however, because this whole thing wouldn't have happened in that case.

What she did is posting these pics on her website together with a whole story and presentation, with plenty of details and explanations, which makes her appear as a nature photographer on a difficult trip to spot a rare animal and who magically manages to find what she's looking for with a perfect setting, allowing her to snap incredible photography. Obviously such impressive photos will then circulate everywhere (and many people will ask to buy it).

Note that, despite the extensive description of her work for these pictures (i) there is not a single mention they are fake (prior to the disclaimer which was added later), (ii) the website is dedicated to those pictures and does not refer to her previous work on digital image (iii) before the deception was exposed she seemed very happy to be featured on newspaper since she included the article of the London Times.

My view is that this is genuine deceit, not just a person who published pictures without giving it much thoughts and simply found out afterwards that people misinterpreted it.

I find it particularly interesting that this comment continues to focus on the details of the extent to which this individual was dishonest—something that I'm sure is definitely possible, though I suspect a little overblown—rather than the low-quality and inflammatory tone of the response, which is something we can directly observe. But we each have our own concerns, I suppose.

> I had no idea this particular hobby was filled with people who were quite so sensitive to the authenticity of photographs

Well, I bet that people who invest enormous effort into actually capturing photos tend to be irritated by people who made collage and present it as areal.

I think it's fair to be irritated that someone has misled others. I also think this article steps far beyond "irritation", and that a responsible article should take basic steps—like seeking a comment from the person in question, and trying to avoid fanning the flames of an already overheated discussion.

Feels to me like there's a lot of 'a certain type of energy' in the article and some of the comments here. I can't really understand the level of bile being generated by these photos, real, semi-real, not-quite real or otherwise.

If you're taking a once in a lifetime shot people will surely be curious.

Curious, I agree – I don't think it's that strange that someone would object to the spread of manipulated photos as a photographer. But I do think there's a pretty big gulf between "curiosity" or "objection" and the sort of… wild-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth tone of this poorly-written article.

I think a good example of this sort of analysis was that piece from earlier in the year about the "fake pro cyclist" Nick Clark https://cyclingtips.com/2022/04/exposed-by-a-strava-kom-the-...

I guess everybody is pendantic about something different. To you "It's absolutely fucking wild [...] that somebody would invest this amount of effort", but I can understand the point of that magazine, too.

Besides a somewhat harsh tone, they are presenting really solid facts, and kind of forensic work, to prove that nothing is like it seems in those images. And if you care a lot about life in/around mountains you are pendantic about local animals and where they appear (or can't appear).

This might be especially true if people have searched/visited that area a lot over the years, and never seen a snow leopard and then somebody comes along and just has that one in a million experience that nobody every had in that place.

Also the digital artist has tried to deceive the viewers into thinking that this is not a composited image: "Squinting through my camera’s telephoto lens, I noticed something in the shadow of Mount Pumori. At first, I thought it was a rock, but it was exactly what I was looking for."

So, was there a snow leopard _at all_ in the end or is that just another (stock) image? What is to be believed by that digital artist? I think this can anger people if they care a lot.

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