Okay, Am I Crazy

Okay, am I crazy, suffering from a bad monitor, or does this "photo" of prisoners from Abu Ghraib via AFP actually look more like a drawing, somehow?

Update: So, um, they just draw something as an excuse to put out a presser on Abu Ghraib? Is that it? That's "news"?

Iraqi detainees rest their hands on razor wires as they watch a group of freed prisoners leaving the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, in 2004. US soldier Joseph Darby, who revealed to investigators the abuse committed by US troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said he was denounced by relatives as a "traitor" but that he did not regret his decision to expose the scandal.(AFP/File/Jewel Samad)

Comments

[error404]

Looks like a Photoshop job to me. The skin looks 'plastic' as if they were created in Poser or something like that, and the hands aren't even postitioned 'on' the wire. I don't know shit about politics, but I do quite a bit of work with graphics.

[indga]

yoou're right, and it's most obvious in the lines which shape and shade the hands.

[indga]

I think the hands may have been added to an existing photo. Look where they are, at the top of the barbed wire fence. Hands, relaxed and not showing strain, aren't likely to be there ... unless their owners are about seven feet tall.

[paully]

yeah.. isn't the whole idea behind razor wire to prevent people from, erm, resting their hands on it? i mean, i like tetanus as much as the next guy, but razor wire make stingy. maybe next they'll show some hezbollah moderates snoozing against an electrified fence.

[The Machine]

Why certainly.

Need a place to rest your weary hands, reach up twelve to fifteen feet and rest 'em on the razor wire.

Happens all the time.

.

[daleb7]

Hands are clearly added -- otherwise a couple of those jihadists -- i mean persecuted non-combatants -- could probably boost one of their buddies over the top of the wire.

In addition, they just have a really fake look to them on my screen.

[Purple Avenger]

I've handled a small bit of that stuff in the past -- you don't "rest your hand on it" unless they're encased in HEAVY leather gloves...even then it snags and catches on everything. Far nastier than ordinary barbed wire.

So...I call bullshit on this too.

[Pixy Misa]

Nah, they're just making shadow puppets to entertain the other inmates.

"Now do a camel!!"

[Kanelin]

Looks fake to me, all the pictures I've seen of Abu Graib show 10 foot fences topped with razor wire. So they would have to be, like 9 feet tall, or maybe 8 feet if they had proportional arms.

But, then maybe the guards allowed them to take footstools to the wire so they can get closer to the top :P

[splashtc]

could be real, perhaps ap was feeling neglected in the reutersgate scandal.
http://rwor.org/a/1242/images/abu-ghraib-relatives-line.jpg

[gultig]

Could be real. Unfortunately the rez is too low to really tell, and these pictures indicate that not all razor wire fences there are really that high:

http://www.rwf.gr/episode1.php?id=156&photog=1

[RightWinged]

I've dug around and can't find a fence that matches this exactly so it's tough to say... most of the shorter ones that they could reach the tops of are different style, without those bit beams that max Xs all the way down. One would think if they are at the "prison walls" as it were, they would certainly have to be looking over much higher fences.. in fact, a lot of Abu Ghraib is walls, rather than fences.

That said, they would have to be idiots (which is within the realm of possibility) to put this online in light of the continuing scandal.

As for my take on the appearance? It certainly looks weird. It does look "plastic" like someone said, and yes it does kind of look like a drawing (a good one though)... If I were to guess, photoshop was used but not to cut and paste images in... I think they threw one of those crazy affects on it, thinking it looked cool... but I don't think that's what photojournalists are supposed to be doing. I know, even in my stupid Microsoft Picture It program, I can make things look like they are chrome or sealed in plastic wrap, etc. Something along those lines is what it appears was done here.

[rwilymz]

1] looks like barbed wire to me; razor wire has long, sharpened blades attached lengthwise to the wire. barbed wire has double-wire twists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_wire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbed_wire
2] in either case, there is ample room between the barbs or razors to safely place your hands or wrists -- carefully -- on the wires, as long as no sudden movement or lack of attention happens; barbed wire and razor wire are constructed to prevent a rapid breach of the barrier
3] seems that the Mighty Bloggers, fresh from hammering the All-Powerful Hajj, are treating every new photo as a nail

[r€nato]

I'm a photographer and (most of) you people are fucking retards. You consider yourselves photographic analysis experts because one time you spotted a really shitty example of the clone stamp tool?

What's next? You diagnose a flat tire and consider yourself an expert auto mechanic? You boil an egg and you're a master chef? The newspaper publishes your letter to the editor and suddenly you're a published writer?

Grow up and get over yourselves. You've spent too long in your right-wing fantasyland bubble and lord, does it show.

Oh and yes, that is a real photo. Christ. I need a drink. The mass stupidity makes my head hurt.

[Phelps]

This is a bad color correcting job. There are two different adjustments made here. The most likely thing is that the hands were selected with the lasso (poorly) and color corrected heavily (maybe to make them look less caucasian) and then the selection was inverted and the rest of the photo adjusted. The dark, straight lines you are seeing is where the sky was selected around the hands and darkened with them.

[Michael]

It's obviously a 'Shop job. In fact, I'm fairly certain that EVERY SINGLE PHOTO that shows something that I a) don't like or b) don't understand is a 'Shop job.

[George W Butch]

3] seems that the Mighty Bloggers, fresh from hammering the All-Powerful Hajj, are treating every new photo as a nail

yeah, youse guys. stop scrutinizing the wire photos. there was just one photog who was a bad apple - only 2 altered pics. there is no possible way that it could happen on a wider scale. multiple layers of fact checking, don'tcha kno?

[Rob@L&R]

More of the photographer's work here.
http://1-22infantry.org/pics/iraqifreedompagethirtyone.htm
(all of the photos on that page are by Jewel Samad, and some on the next 2 pages)

Some of his stuff is pretty damn good.

I would take that as an endorsement by the men & women of the 1-22. Not saying that's representative of all his stuff, but the pics on those pages are definitely NOT anti-US.

He covered the 2nd issue of Playboy in Indonesia.
http://news.sawf.org/Lifestyle/13778.aspx

And the Boxer Day Tsunami in Banda Aceh
http://www.iabc.or.id/photos_aceh.htm

None of his other photos seemed to be anything but legit news coverage. I agree with Phelps' assessment; it's a bad level/curve adjustment.

[SlimeBallofTheRealm]

Actually this is part of a series, they are on a stepladder, next slide not shown is they throw a prayer rug over the bad stuff and escape to Cuba.

Not shown is thier begging at the gate to come back in!

[error404]

"I'm a photographer and (most of) you people are fucking retards. You consider yourselves photographic analysis experts because one time you spotted a really shitty example of the clone stamp tool?

What's next? You diagnose a flat tire and consider yourself an expert auto mechanic? You boil an egg and you're a master chef? The newspaper publishes your letter to the editor and suddenly you're a published writer?

Grow up and get over yourselves. You've spent too long in your right-wing fantasyland bubble and lord, does it show.

Oh and yes, that is a real photo. Christ. I need a drink. The mass stupidity makes my head hurt".
Posted by: r€nato | Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 10:44 AM

***

:-)

hehe, the best comment of the year. So good, it's worth thinking about.

[Shorter Rightwing Arseholes]

Congratulations!

You and Ass of Spades have won the contest for

THE DUMBEST PEOPLE ON ALL OF THE INTERNETS!

Continue catapulting those rumors on the internets, you're doing a heckuva job!