Exposures

This morning I came across a video --

It's a clip of an oil rig apparently completely sinking into the ocean.
You can see it -- it's some home video -- and then it is narrated in Japanese -- I think. There's an American version and the reporting is simply horrible. The reporter says they don't know why it happened -- then starts to call it an attack -- it's vague and inciting and confusing and unclear -- she says at some point, "alarmingly close to the coast of Connecticut..." The strangest thing about the video is that, while I can find countess versions of the video on search engines everywhere -- I can't find a single news story about the incident anywhere.

Not anywhere.

Not in Google, Google News, The Times The Herald Tribune -- not the AP. It would appear to me it could very well be a hoax -- a real-live internet hoax... go figure! Or an underreported blown up oil rig... hmm... I was going to post it -- before I kept going. I don't want to continue it any further.

The trouble with photography is that it seems indisputable. That has been an issue since the very beginning of photography -- regardless of the amazing thing we can concoct now, people have always been intrigued by, drawn to, wary of, falling for -- fake outs. And photography looks so real...


William H. Mumler (Boston):
Moses A. Dow, Editor of Waverley Magazine, with the Spirit of Mabel Warren.
Albumen print carte de visite, circa 1871

I came across a website analyzing news photos from Reuters to pick up on seeming incongruities and falsified situations.

Digitally manipulated images
Stages Scenes
Photographers moving objects within "documentary" work
Giving False captions

I don't want to link anything today because it all seems pretty suspect to me.
We can find so much so easily these days -- but it's good to remember that you have to check up on everything, all the time.

Just to make sure I learned on real thing -- I also note an article by Bloomberg, which is a new source I entirely trust.

The headline reads:
Thaw Exposes Greenland's Oil

for this story I have a quote, but no comment:

"Given the icy conditions, oil production may cost as much as $US46 per barrel, according to Oil and Gas Journal. While exploration is complicated by icebergs as tall as 15-storey buildings, global warming is helping.

Outside the Disko Bay area off the west coast, there were on average 180 ice-free days a year between 2000 and 2005, up from a 25-year average of 150 days, said Leif Toudal Pedersen, a spokesman at Denmark's Meteorological Institute.

''If the ice in west Greenland continues to melt as dramatically as it has been doing in the past few years, then the cost of producing a barrel of oil will be closer to $20 than $50,'' Nielsen said."