Once again it’s almost time for the Blahg to adopt its usual festive mood in honour of the birth of baby jeebus. Which means the nasty partisanship will soon be tucked away for about a week in the spirit of the season. So I best hurry if I want to point out what a bunch of wankers the Harper conservatives are with this investigation into the case of the photoshopped Christmas pic.
Examine the evidence.
The first picture I grabbed off the two internets a week or two ago when a few blahggers were talking about it. It’s the picture that’s supposedly on the Harper family Christmas card. The second picture I received last night in an email from the Conservative Party.
There’s one obvious difference between the two pictures; the kitten. But here’s the thing. Examine the poses of Stephen, his wife and his son. What you’ll see is that they’re almost identical in the two pictures. There are minor differences which tells me that these two shots were part of a sequence taken over a very short time span without pause by the photographer.
So how is it that a kitten was either introduced into the picture or removed from the picture without significantly altering the pose of those three? It’s simply not possible, especially when you consider that the chair Stephen is sitting in was also moved.
How do I know the chair isn’t in the same position? Well, examine the fireplace in the background. Pick any identifiable point on the fireplace between Stephen and his son. On the first picture place your cursor on this point and then move the cursor down in a straight line until it reaches the arm of the chair. Note its position in relation to the pattern on the fabric of the arm. Now repeat the procedure, using the same point, for the second picture.
See, the armchair has moved. Which also accounts for why the family is closer together in the second picture. And yes, the camera was positioned in the exact same spot for both pictures. Look at the shadows on the wall in the background. They’re identical.
So here is the sequence of events we’re supposed to believe occurred. The Harper family posed for the first picture. Then Stephen got up, moved the armchair and sat back down while a kitten was handed to his daughter and the family drew closer together. Stephen, his wife and his son then managed to strike a pose that’s almost perfectly identical to the one on the first picture; with Stephen even managing to position his hands exactly, and I do mean exactly, the same.
Now that’s some feat…or, dare I say, some fine photoshopping.
There’s one other bit of evidence that’s the smoking gun. Look at the second picture. Look at the buttons on Mrs. Harper’s blouse. You can see one buttoned up near the top and if you follow it straight down you can just barely see the second one. Stephen’s shoulder is covering half the button. Now look at the first picture. You can’t see the second button, but when the picture is enlarged in photoshop you can see that Stephen’s shoulder is covering half the button. The odds of that happening in two photos with so much movement taking place between them must be astronomical.
It’s even obvious how it was done. Examine Stephen’s right shoulder. Look at where the lines of his collar converge with the line of his shoulder. It forms a pattern that looks like the flux capacitor from Back to the Future. Now place your cursor on that point and follow it down until you reach his hands. Repeat for the other photo. It doesn’t line up and in fact, you can visibly see Stephen’s shoulder isn’t as broad in the second picture. Our Prime Minister either must have shrunk between photos or a skilled photoshopper took a slice out of him to draw the family closer together.
Clearly the Christmas picture the Conservatives sent out in their email last night was photoshopped so it would include a kitten. That’s taking image crafting to a whole new wankeriffic level.
More importantly: dude, who cares?
Jeebus? How unnecessarily crass.
Are you saying, Robert, that the entire thing was a staged photo opportunity?
That’s diabolical!
Thanks to your incredible deductive gift, this tremendous hoax has been blown wide open. Kudos and congratulations, Sir.
You know, the first time I saw the original I commented to a friend that I thought Steve’s head had been photoshopped. Weird.
The wonders of ADOBE PHOTOSHOP………. although I am no fan of Harper and never did, never will vote for him, it is a picture of his family during the holiday season and he is the PM(for now) This reader always considered family out of bounds to commentary from any source.
Happy Holidays
It looks as if the second photo was taken from a different angle. The camera was slightly to the right and slightly lower. The photoshop hoax is a hoax.
Harper is fair game, His family is not.
Merry Christmas to all.
Harper is fair game, His family is not.
The kitten is fair game though, right?
I am less impressed by the politically demanded picture than I am with the abilities of the one who critiques it.
Well done and Merry Christmas, Robert.
Robert, if this is how desperate you are getting, the NDP must be in real trouble. Try and put down your hate agenda and paranoia for a couple of days and enjoy the non-denominatinal holiday season upon us.
The Harper family actually does take in feral kittens from the Humane Society, and, after they’re socialized, gove them to friends. Harper is a serious cat fanatic.
The kitten is fair game though, right?
As long as the kitten is a conservative.
In the words of RM: Happy thoughts to you.
Seriously Robert, who gives a crap.
Put down the keyboard and have a Merry Christmas. m’kay
Robert,
I don’t think that this was photoshopped. When you look closely at each of them, you can see some fairly major differences in the poses. The shoulder broadness can be affected by the angle of his shoulders with respect to the camera. Clearly this was a photo shoot where several pics were snapped by a photographer who was posing them for maximum effect (hence the similarity between the poses.)
The only one who is identical between the two shots is the PM. No, this wasn’t photoshoppery. I have a more sinister conclusion: the Prime Minister is actually a robot. But then, we already knew that.
I could personally care less about the photo but one other indication it is photoshopped, look at the daughter’s right hand. it isn’t in any way resting on her leg, as you would expect, it appears to ‘hover’ in the air.
Regardless, there are a lot of sites out there when you can see examples of how the public is fooled by photoshop… tons of them involving advertising.
You didn’t do enough of those spot the differences puzzles as a child. There are too many differences for it to be photoshopped. We’ve counted at least a dozen. The angle of the shot is slightly different as well which accounts for much of what you mentioned. There are often these slight differences in series of professional photographs.
Is PMSH married or common law? I cannot see a wedding ring on his finger. Maybe in Alberta they don’t use those?