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odd picture

I'm no expert, but I can perceive a slight change in angle and/or zoom. Look at the far edge of the grass on the LH side - in the bottom photo, there's some yellow object and what looks like a ladder (?) and in the upper photo, that object is mostly cropped out. Also, in the bottom photo, the edge of the photo on the LH side is closer to the edge of the seat. Combining those two factors makes me think there's been a shift in the photographer's position. I think that explain the presence of, e.g., a lens flare in one of the photos that's not in the other. It's also very clearly a sunny day.

So does it look like any kind of lens flare anyone has seen before?
 
It could be a bird flying behind them.
 
Good one! First thoughts - if it's an object, it's partly in shadow on the right as we see it, with the left in sunlight. It might be reflective on the underside, as there's foliage there. Or its semi translucent.

Closer inspection of both shots makes me think that in the top shot, the area corresponding the 'anomaly' looks a bit blurred. And most interesting of all, is that a figure on both shots? Left leg raised, leaning forward in the top shot, reaching up on the bottom one? Maybe wearing running gear?

To go any further I'd need to get them into Photoshop, and I'm not turning the Mac on right now (it's in the studio in the cellar and it's almost midnight!!!!!!). Anyone any explanation based around the camera or lens?
 
I thought bird too, unless someone was frisbeeing a hi-hat.
 
Mystereaux1 said:
I thought bird too, unless someone was frisbeeing a hi-hat.
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Yeah, I thought maybe a frustrated drummer was just outside the frame. :lol:
 
Actually, if you look closely in the top, the object appears to be behind the man's head, the rightmost part of it emerging just a little bit. But its position doesn't seem the same.

In the bottom photo, if you look downwards from the strange object in question, there's something - maybe a cut log? - along the back of the yard on the ground. Now look at the top photo - that log (we'll call it) is also there, but it's right up against the man's head, further suggestion that the photographer's angle has shifted. The mysterious object seems to be behind the man's head in the top photo.

The question is, did it move?

I'm sure someone could calculate where the photographer must be standing for each shot. It looks to me like the photographer stepped to her or his right between the top and bottom photos, but may also have moved forward or back and zoomed in or out a bit. I can't quite tell.

If the mystery object is a bird, then that photographer would have to make all those shifts pretty fast to make two decent photos in the time it took a bird to fly about a foot.

It would be helpful to know if it was the same person who took both shots, how much time was between the shots, and if they changed position at all - including to look at the photo on their camera's view-screen and decide, "Let's take another".
 
a bug of some kind ? looks a trifle mothular ... also in the top photo you can almost see it appearing from behind his haircut ... although i would have it closer to the lens for sizing ...
 
special_farces said:
... in the top shot, the area corresponding the 'anomaly' looks a bit blurred. And most interesting of all, is that a figure on both shots? Left leg raised, leaning forward in the top shot, reaching up on the bottom one? Maybe wearing running gear?
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weirdly it does look blurred ... where is the running gear wearing arm-reacher ???
 
Wow, thanks for the great responses, folks!
I'll pass them along to my Facebook friends. I'll also ask them how much time was between the shots.
 
I'm in a rush this morning so a quick ten minutes in photoshop to get started. Here are three jpegs from the original file. I layered the two shots over one another and its obvious the camera position changes slightly, probably in all 3 axis, as well as the family moving slightly. So there is no exact pixel by pixel line up, and I haven't rotated or transformed in any other way to make it do so, as that can introduce artefacts in the jpeg.

I don't know what I think at the moment. I retouch photos as part of my job at a print/photo studio and it's a bit time consuming to find good evidence a image has been manipulated (and you really need the original files). And I've seen plenty of flares, but not one like this, and objects caught in motion (birds, insects, kids, pets...) and this looks different (but that doesn't mean its not a silver frisbee going left to right!). The depth of field is slightly different in both shots.

From my point of view the oddest aspects are:

1. The area of blurred pixels in the top picture that the 'obvious' anomaly neatly fits into in the bottom shot.

2. The figure, which hopefully is a bit more obvious in my 3rd version. I don't know if this is 'real', or just an illusion in the light and shade of the foliage. But last night I wrote it was leaning - it isn't, in the top shot it is distorted by the blurred pixels.

3. The erratic blurring along the left edges of the anomaly. I'll look at those again later.

Heres the shots with notes on what I did in photoshop:

Image 1 - photos separated into layers, overlaid and roughly lined up, cropped and vertically tiled.

Image 2 - Blown up - in Photoshop used Image Size to increase pixel dimensions by 100%, resampled using Bicubic smoother.

Image 3 - above image, with a translucent mask applied to most of image, to highlite the anomalies (done using a curves adjustment layer).
 
To me, personally, it looks very much like it was present in both pictures, but had has been erased from the first. The blurred area is the remains of this, and the bit that looks like it is emerging from behind his head is a portion of it that they missed or couldn't remove cleanly because it was partially behind his head from that angle.

Plus, the blurred bit is a clone of the area pretty much directly below/above it (Depends on which bit is the original. It is easy to spot the cloning.) You might be able to explain the blurring as some supernatural effect, but I don't think the supernatural is going to use a clone brush. :lol:

Not sure what it is, but as it was present in both pics and then removed from one of them - I am guessing it is something mundane that just happens to look odd.
 
Yes I agree, definitely cloned to remove the object, I'd still like to know what the removed object was though.
 
Ronson8 said:
Yes I agree, definitely cloned to remove the object, I'd still like to know what the removed object was though.
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Tiny UFO.
 
It's possible that the object is far away.

There could be a road behind the hedge, a car towing a caravan could have been driving past, the roof is mostly in shade from the trees, with little bits of sunlight catching the roof through the trees.
 
Are you sure you're looking at the same picture as the rest of us? :roll:
 
I'm thinking both shots have been manipulated. Tamyu is right about the top shot. And on the bottom shot I'd say the erratic streaky blurring is a sign a smudge tool has been used. So could originally have been an ordinary lens flare or light effect present in both shots, removed from one and edited in the second.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
It's possible that the object is far away.

There could be a road behind the hedge, a car towing a caravan could have been driving past, the roof is mostly in shade from the trees, with little bits of sunlight catching the roof through the trees.
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Given how the sunlight is on the trees, it does look like the darker trees behind the object are in fact not the same distance away. You win my vote as most likely explanation.
 
Thanks for the feedback all.
My facebook friend says the photos were taken about 3-5 seconds apart.

I'll ask who the photographer was and if he thinks the photographer did any photoshopping. I'll also ask if there's a street behind all the bushes in the background.
 
I'm really not seeing any cloning or obvious smudging. If you look at the image with the anomaly, the leaves behind it are dark just as in the other photo. And that dark patch really doesn't match the others like it in the photo. Someone will have to really point this out to me if I'm just missing something.

That's not to say I have any ideas about what the anomaly might be.
 
It looks like whatever-it-is is behind the man's head in the first shot, just starting to appear to the right of his head.
 
More photoshop mucking about. I'll pretend I did this in my lunch hour.....

The first image is just a copy of Image 2, with hopefully self explanatory annotations. I think the 'figure' is a optical illusion, but a useful ref point and evidence the top image has been edited.

The second image is a mess - but stare at it long enough and you'll see:

1. The fleck of light that might be something emerging in the top shot lines right up with similar pixels in the bottom shot. 2. The 'streak' really does drop neatly into the area of blurred pixels.

Heres the shots with notes:

Image 4 - as stated, just image 2 with annotations.

Image 5 - top shot layered over bottom shot, rotated a few degrees clockwise to get better pixel on pixel matching*, then the top shot layer opacity dropped by 60%. So the right side gentleman's head (with some foliage imposed) is on the top shot.

Any clearer :?: :?:

*I used the two vertical spots of light and small triangle of spots of light below the eye-line as main match points. As I said earlier, rotating is not ideal but I was after matching the areas around the 'streak', rather than judging if pixels had been altered in any way.
 
still looks like a moth flying into the camera to me fairly close in ...
 
Yes I was thinking it looks like a parasol at the back of the garden that has been remove din the first photo.
 
The blurring would account for the removal of the support arm.

And welcome aboard Snook!!

I'm mook.
 
I have to third the suggestion that it's a garden umbrella/parasol.

Here is my analysis of the images. Hooray for procrastination-induced motivation. ;)

I've outlined where I think the umbrella's support arm is visible. Secondly I tried to reproduce the general look of the first photo (where I assume the umbrella has been edited out) using the second photo (where the umbrella is still visible). I also made my own attempt to remove the umbrella from the second photo with much less blurring!


Edit: I forgot to mention that I assume the dappled colour of the umbrella is simply light/shadows of overhanging trees.
 
I also agree the hanging parasol looks like the likeliest explanation. But if this is the case:

1. I cannot see anything of the supporting post and arm (in the second picture). I would think that at least a hint of it would be visible even given the blurring. There are two or three vertical darker lines that might be the post, but they're all in the same place relative to the trees in both pictures. So if one of these lines is the supporting post then the object was photoshopped out in the first picture (as opposed to just being behind the dad's head).

2. If the pictures were taken in the yard of Hornbuck's facebook friends or some other place they're familiar with, then they know what the object was.

So I'm guessing it's a hanging parasol and somebody has manipulated the photos and/or the story to manufacture a mystery for us.
 
the shape of the parasol in those reference pictures looks good but im unconvinced by the photomanipulations ...
 
IamSundog said:
So I'm guessing it's a hanging parasol and somebody has manipulated the photos and/or the story to manufacture a mystery for us.
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I'm guessing you're probably right, why else would anyone want to remove a perfectly normal garden item.
 
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