Joe Russo
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As we've demonstrated many times before, sometimes the truth is stranger than Photoshop. For those of you still unconvinced, we present the latest installment in our ongoing quest to show you every picture that has ever looked ridiculously fake, but isn't.
In case you missed them, here's Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, the gritty reboot that doesn't acknowledge the previous editions and Part Six. And now ...
This goldfish looks like it's a crappy rubber movie prop. It's alive, however, and was caught by a French fisherman who apparently has a complete love affair with carp. The only problem with his spectacular catch is finding a toilet big enough to flush it down when it dies.
These weird clouds are called rolling clouds and sometimes precede thunderstorms and a lot of soiled pants from anyone on the ground who's never seen one before. This particular one was photographed in Australia.
If wacky conspiracy nuts go crazy over airplane contrails, we can't wait to see them talk about the weather-control technology cloud highways that the government is using to send messages into space.
While this picture of model Amazon Eve may technically be photoshopped in the sense that no actual unretouched photograph of a woman has appeared in a magazine since their invention, they haven't altered her size in any way. She stands at 6-feet 8-inches (over 7-feet in heels), meaning that not only can she excite men the world over with her looks, she's also able to dunk on three-quarters of the NBA.
Who says models portray an unattainable standard for women?
It looks like a still from Inception, but it's actually a photograph by French artist Philippe Ramette and instead of spending $150 million, he just turned his camera sideways. We could've really chosen any of his pictures, because they're all beautifully surreal.
"We have to go deeper!"
This painted dude is the work of artist Alexa Meade. You may think it would take a person with a pretty skewed view of reality to be able to paint someone so that he looks like he's cut from an oil painting, even if you're standing right in front of him. Judging by her artist's statement, you'd be right: "I paint representational portraits directly on top of the people I am representing. The models are transformed into embodiments of the artist's interpretation of their essence."
We're pretty sure that's just an artsy way to say "I like to freak people out on the subway."
This unaltered mugshot appeared on the website from a Miami newspaper and immediately drew a torrent of comments screaming, "FAKE!" Not only is it not fake, but the guy in them appears to lead a normal life (he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, and has some other minor offenses in the past). Commenters there claimed to know him and said he seemed like a nice guy when they conversed with him.
So ... the 80 percent or so of the brain that guy appears to be missing, what does it actually do?
Yes, that's a Nintendo DS, and no, it's not a badly photoshopped magazine ad.
A boy at the San Francisco Zoo dropped his DS into an enclosure which led to immediate amusement of the gorillas. It's fun to imagine this one loading up Donkey Kong and cackling maniacally as Mario dies over and over.
"Ha-ha! Fuck you!"
At first glance, this picture of a diver in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Berlin looks like the whole hotel is submerged. The reality is almost more amazing, though, given that it's actually a million-liter water column in the atrium. They'd better keep an awfully close eye on it, or the latter will become the former.
What looks like a half-done attempt to edit a utility pole out of a landscape is in fact the aftermath of a brushfire in Russia. How exactly they managed to stop the fire right before it burnt out the lines, we're not sure, but we're certainly glad it didn't shut down the market for international brides.
These funhouse-mirror railroad tracks are a reminder that Mother Nature pretty much laughs at the things we build. What you're seeing is the aftermath of a recent earthquake in New Zealand.
We feel sorry for those two guys in orange who apparently have been tasked with re-straightening the tracks with their bare hands. Hurry up, guys! The train will be here in 10 minutes!
This would be an impressive feat even if this church was just a painting on the side of the cliff face. Then you find out it's a real church.
It's the Hermitage of St. Columban in Trentino, Italy and this photo was taken by John McGregor. It gets even more impressive -- or insane -- when you realize the church was built in 1319. And it's only accessible by climbing 102 steps up the mountain.
So, yeah, good job to whoever hauled all those bricks up there.
While we're on the topic of amazing feats of Italians, we present the Alpine ibex, seen here casually scaling the Cingino Dam in Italy and openly defying all laws of physics.
The only thing these goats give less of a shit about than gravity are the fences you build to try to keep them in. Among their other superpowers are growing giant horns and being the only animal as likely to crap on your shoulder as seagulls.
Sinkholes are so utterly unwelcome and alien in our everyday life that every photo of them looks fake. And that's if you can even tell what you're looking at -- from a distance, this sort of looks like a spreading pool of oil spilling from the passenger door. From another angle, the sinkhole below the car becomes clearer, but this particular bad drive home looks no less physically impossible ...
The gaping, bottomless pit opened up underneath a dude in China. The story is likely to have a sad ending, though, as he was probably swept away into an unmarked van for re-training after having publicly embarrassed his country.
This is a photo from an aerobatic performance by the Blue Angels, who, if you're not familiar, make their living by flying in mind-bogglingly close formation at terrifying speeds. We're not sure what use this would be in war -- maybe the planes eventually join together like Voltron.
This Escher-esque photo is of an Italian shepherd leading his flock through San Boldo Pass (photo by Giancarlo Rado). We like to think that top tunnel just loops around to the one on the left and they just go around and around, endlessly.
This bad painting/album cover is a photo of the continuously spewing Fly Geyser in Nevada. The colorful mineral buildup from the continuous eruption makes it look like a giant serving of rainbow sherbet. If you think that photo looks doctored, feel free to take to Google and find a shot that doesn't look fake as hell. Perhaps you'd like one taken in full daylight, like this:
Yeah, that's actually worse.
This apparent bad cut-and-paste job is a real-life optical illusion from Brazilian artist Regina Silveira. We're not artists or anything, but white seems to be a bad choice. It's the best possible way to show the gallons of vomit of everybody who gets vertigo just from walking by.
Now here's 21 more images you won't believe aren't photoshopped ...
And stop by Linkstorm to scream, "FAKE!" at more real photos.
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Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infograpic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!
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