The Miracles of Cut and Paste
I was just sent this digital image with the following email which advises the recipient to send the email on to 13 people in their address book with the promise that they could become very rich if they follow this instruction, but the warning that they could suffer extreme misfortune if they don't (on the original email, the image is at the bottom of the page just to add that extra bit of tension as the unsuspecting reader scrolls down). The email reads thus:"READ BEFORE LOOKING AT THE PHOTO... The young man in this photo visited a historic site in Georgia called Fort Mountain with his friends and he asked them to take his photo while hiking. While his friend took the photo, he screamed and fainted. Then 2 days later he died in the hospital. The doctors said he died from a heart attack. When the photos where developed, in the last photo there was a woman standing next to the young man, even though his friends said there was no one with him when the photo was taken. Many people know of this rumor and the last photo is the result of the blessings of technology. People say its the ghost of Cherokee Chief Ross's wife Madam Firecrochet. Still, the photo is very mysterious and I am sure that when you see it you will feel the same as me. Here is the photo! A Naval Officer sent it to 13 people and he was promoted within 13 days. A business person was sent this, he erased it, and within 13 days he lost everything. A laborer received this and sent it to 13 people and within days he was promoted and all his problems were solved. I'm taking no chances.......off she goes to my family and friends....."
The really amazing thing is that there are lists of email addresses at the top of the email of presumably otherwise intelligent and sensible people who do indeed send this nonsense off to their loved ones and to random strangers like me under fear of a visitation from the delightful Madam Firecrochet.
So why am I so confident that this is such nonsense and what instills me with such audacity to scoff at the eerily mysterious Madam Crochet under the full glare of the global internet? She who would cause young men in their prime to drop down dead in the forest?
Well, fortunately the same wonders of modern technology which helped the digital photography artist to create this fascinating image, can also be employed in the exposure of it's fraud. If you blow the image up with standard digital image software, you will notice that in the faint outline of Madam Crochet's right sleeve is the shape of a wooden door which would have been in the background of the original image from which our dear spectre was otherwise painstakingly cut before being pasted onto the forest scene. Either that, or more likely her image was clone painted so that it appears transparent on the background.
I am even convinced that the image of the youth himself was also a cut and paste job, rather than being on the original forest image, because there are some extremely straight lines on his outer form as well as unlikely shadow lines which were probably part of a dark background.
But just to make the point, in the words of Valerie Singleton, here's one I made earlier featuring yours truly as the genie of the lamp, which took me about 5 minutes to create:
The more observant amongst you may even make out the misty form of the ghost of Homer Simpson hovering over my heart.... "Doh!"
So next time you receive one of these items of superstitious clap-trap in your inbox, you might take my advice and point it in the direction of your recycle bin
Comments
Post a Comment