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Yeti Photo From Russia

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wonderfulme

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I think it looks like a painting copied from one of those "ascent of man" pictures. Which is really just a remark; it doesn't mean anything in and of itself.

In fact, the whole thing looks like a painting to my unartistic eye. I'm reminded of a set of UFO pictures a kid in my high school brought in once, as part of the presentation part of a research paper. The point was to do the research, so we were allowed to choose our own subject. He passed the photos around, which showed a disc-shaped object in various positions in the sky above a wooded landscape and which he claimed to have been taken by a relative. Most of us were politely impressed (the remark I remember making was: "I can see where that got you interested") and it wasn't until someone else said something about the prettiness of the country, how it could almost be a painting and where was it taken that somebody (memory says me, but I make things up) noticed the signature in the lower right hand corner of one photo! He'd taken an ordinary bit of hardware - a washer bolt, I think - laid it in various artistic attitudes against a well-done realistic painting, taken photos, and selected the best shots to illustrate his paper. His paper had not been on UFOs per se at all, but on how people observe and react to evidence depending on how it is presented to them.

Anyway, I'm just reminded of that; it is not my official theory, just a reaction caused by the appearance of a "classic landscape" combined with the "classic ascent of man" alma. My capacity to judge between a digital photo of a real landscape and a digital photo of a realistic painting, or any of the other ways this could have been done if it were a fake, is about nil.
 
Thanks for your input, PeniG!

I can well assure you that the landscape is absolutely real and thoroughly Russian. That is not a painting of any kind, that is a genuine photo - of that I am sure. As for the Yeti like figure - I'd like an opinion of somebody well versed in Photoshop and generally digital image manipulation - just how real it seems to you?
 
I do a lot in photoshop and as much as I hoped to something really new, the very first thing I said out loud was: "Jesus Crist!"
because it immediately struck me as "wrong"

Its a gut feeling and an opinion after looking at the picture closer. In my opinion the figure is slightly too bright and there seems to be a bit of softening around the feet in order to blend it in with the ground. I think I could do better [if I could be arsed]. Maybe we should have a competition?

Best Yeti fake!
 
First thought: if the 'yeti' wasn't seen at the time, what was the point of the photo? It seems to be otherwise of an unremarkable piece of riverside woodland.

Secondly, the head looks rather reptilian - was Icke right?! :shock:

My two-times blow-up of the beast:

Yeti.jpg


bigfoot.jpg

EDIT: Here's an equivalently-sized excerpt from the original photo link without the overlaid PhotoBucket watermark.
 
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The head looks slightly like a baboon's head to me. Aside from the creature, the image looks like something you'd find in a cheap calendar. It seems a bit too composed to be a casual snapshot taken from a moving boat. It's also interesting that the photographer just happened to catch a perfect side profile of the creature.
 
it also appears to be a one legged yeti... the front 'leg' is the tree behind it :?
 
graylien said:
The head looks slightly like a baboon's head to me. Aside from the creature, the image looks like something you'd find in a cheap calendar. It seems a bit too composed to be a casual snapshot taken from a moving boat. It's also interesting that the photographer just happened to catch a perfect side profile of the creature.
Click to expand...
Bipedal, baboon headed, mystery manimal takes stroll through Siberian forest.

Does look like a bit of an imaginative fake. :)
 
I thought the creature was rather original looking at least. No reason why it couldn´t be a guy in a costume though.
 
Query: Is it possible to take a Bigfoot (or ghost or fairy or UFO) photo that doesn't look like a fake?

Too fuzzy - no good, can't get no details, must be faked. Too clear - must be faked! I could do that with Photoshop/CGI/cardboard cutouts/a guy in a suit/a washer and a painting; must be faked.

Would we derive more, or less, benefit from such photos if we look at them, not as evidence, but as artifacts? Or does that depend entirely on who is doing the looking?

Do I spend too much time treating reality as an artistic exercise?

Enquiring minds may possibly have better things to think about than these questions...
 
Fake, but at least someone spent more than 2 minutes on this one.

There are three give-aways ~

First, the conformity of the pixels used to make up the body. The colours of the pixels on the "bigfoot" are too similar to their neighbours when compared to neighbouring pixels in the rest of the photo. It's very difficult to emulate photographic grain when painting digitally and this guy hasn't quite got it right. Compression for web helps disguise this, but evidently not enough.

The lighting on the bigfoot is slightly at odds with the rest of the photo. Not only that, but the lower part of the bigfoot's leg should be lit, and it isn't. I can see what the artist has done - he's looked at the nearby trees, seen that their bases are darker and assumed this is due to shadow, but it isn't. It's because of moss and damp, darker bark near ground level.

Lastly, the ear and face are too sharp when taking into account the contrast. It's often the case with a painting that you emphasise the focus with more detail, but of course it doesn't work in a photo.

8/10 - good effort, but Hollywood won't be calling just yet
 
One of these days someone is going to take a bona fide picture of a yeti or a ufo and a bunch of experts will give a dozen reasons why it's a fake, I blame the cottingley fairies fiasco! :)
 
As I told my friend recently, in this day and age, photographic evidence isn't worth much these days, because we have the technology to make absolutely perfectly-convincing fakes. This photo is not one of them.
 
I'm sure i've seen this photo before but with a much less weird-looking head...
 
TheOrigDesperado said:
Fake, but at least someone spent more than 2 minutes on this one.

There are three give-aways ~

First, the conformity of the pixels used to make up the body. The colours of the pixels on the "bigfoot" are too similar to their neighbours when compared to neighbouring pixels in the rest of the photo. It's very difficult to emulate photographic grain when painting digitally and this guy hasn't quite got it right. Compression for web helps disguise this, but evidently not enough.

The lighting on the bigfoot is slightly at odds with the rest of the photo. Not only that, but the lower part of the bigfoot's leg should be lit, and it isn't. I can see what the artist has done - he's looked at the nearby trees, seen that their bases are darker and assumed this is due to shadow, but it isn't. It's because of moss and damp, darker bark near ground level.

Lastly, the ear and face are too sharp when taking into account the contrast. It's often the case with a painting that you emphasise the focus with more detail, but of course it doesn't work in a photo.

8/10 - good effort, but Hollywood won't be calling just yet
Click to expand...

I'll second that analysis! Had a poke at it in Photoshop as well - although nowhere near as completely as you have. Once you get up to 500% it's clearly wrong in comparison to the surrounding pixels.

Then again, I'd love to be wrong! :lol:
 
nataraja said:
I'm sure i've seen this photo before but with a much less weird-looking head...
Click to expand...
Me as well. Wasn't it supposedly a Canadian one, quite a few years ago, but as you say with a far more ape-like head?
 
A quick google search for such a Canadian photo turned up a few that didn't look remotely like this. Are you sure you're not thinking of the same simplistic "Ascent of Man" sequences I am?

(Typical example here: kheper.net/evolution/ascentofman.jpg )
Link is dead. Here is the MIA image.

ascentofman.jpg

SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090806231403/https://www.kheper.net/evolution/ascentofman.jpg

You find them everywhere, even attached to the work of people who deal in the more realistic, "bushy" human family trees of real working theory than in the old-fashioned, stripped-down model.
 
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PeniG said:
A quick google search for such a Canadian photo turned up a few that didn't look remotely like this.
Click to expand...
Yes - I think there have been quite a few Canadian photos, most of which don't look like the one I'm thinking of, either.
Are you sure you're not thinking of the same simplistic "Ascent of Man" sequences I am?
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm quite sure.
 
My first response was that it looks absolutely fake, like a (not very good) digital drawing painted into the photo. I'm not such a photographical expert as some of the previous posters, but their critiques sound about right.
 
A brief but fruitful google search

It seems it was made for a competition on worth1000 http://www.worth1000.com/

Comparison
qpglqw.jpg


Bigfoot source pic
11mf5ux.jpg


Pictures are MIA. TinyPic is defunct, and the remote links are deleted.
No closely matching photo found in Worth1000 archive.


:roll:

Someone made a fair point a few posts back about what would be considered reliable proof in these days of unidentifiable image manipulation and modelling. Apart from yer actual live (or dead i suppose) specimen nothing would suffice...or would it? Video or photography can no longer be trusted, surely a huge problem for Fortean types.
 
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Nice one Monster Magnet, Well it was a bit to good to be true, graylien said it was to perect a side profile to be an accident, and he was right.

PeniG, looks like you were right, well it seems it was taken from the Descent of man as apposed to the Ascent of man. ;)
 
Waylander28 said:
...PeniG, looks like you were right, well it seems it was taken from the Descent of man as apposed to the Ascent of man. ;)
Click to expand...
Yep, fair enough, Peni.

Y'know what though - I'm still convinced I've seen a pic, quite a long time ago that's very, very similar, albeit with a more convincing head, purportedly taken in Canada. Perhaps it's a US Civil War Thunderbird type photo meme?
 
Yay, I get points. 8)

Is it possible you can't find your Canadian picture now because you saw it in a venue or in a context that would have had limited distribution - somebody's personal portfolio viewed at a con, a self-published flyer, something like that?

You may have seen them in an alternate universe from which you have now drifted, but that's not the most parsimonious explanation.
 
PeniG said:
...Is it possible you can't find your Canadian picture now because you saw it in a venue or in a context that would have had limited distribution - somebody's personal portfolio viewed at a con, a self-published flyer, something like that?
Click to expand...
Quite possible. I used to have a whole slew of obscure Sasquatch and Yeti material (that was my big Fortean interest as a teen) accumulated from all over the place, including clippings sent over by relatives in both the US and Canada. Unfortunately the whole lot was lost in a house fire some years ago (thankfully no casualties, but lots of rare Fortean material, a lot of rare books and records, two bottles of very nice scotch and some frankly appalling shirts went up in smoke :(.)
 
graylien said:
The head looks slightly like a baboon's head to me. Aside from the creature, the image looks like something you'd find in a cheap calendar. It seems a bit too composed to be a casual snapshot taken from a moving boat. It's also interesting that the photographer just happened to catch a perfect side profile of the creature.
Click to expand...

Yes, I mean, clearly the thing's supposed to be strolling along... surely someone would have said "Oy, look! Oliver's out for a stroll!"
 
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