First, all the faces are the same; grandma’s is the exact same face pasted on each image. Second, given the actual shadows in the photos, the shadows shouldn’t have been that much of a problem. It would literally be impossible to make images this awful unless you were doing it on purpose.
14 Likes
The clumsy attempt at virality clearly worked - we’re looking at it on boingboing, after all
13 Likes
There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
2 Likes
Were they extras in “Waking Life”?
7 Likes
4 Likes
This is truly inspiring. If this one person can make a living as a freelance photographer with such “skills”, then everyone can !
3 Likes
I agree, if this is real, why aren’t the dogs’ faces messed up too? Did her professor specialize in dog portraits?
2 Likes
Hey look, Otto has a family! Who knew!
30 Likes
Came here for this. Was not disappointed. 10/10. Would visit again.
5 Likes
Never attribute to an attempt to go viral what can be explained by sheer stupidity.
5 Likes
Yeah, be careful with that line of reasoning. tRump was so obviously not going to get elected… (there used to be a clever finish to that thought, but I’ve completely run out of irony by now)
6 Likes
I don’t think it can be attributed to stupidity, it seems like it
would take a bit of talent to illustrate these faces. Not a huge
amount, but some.
1 Like
I’d like to know what software was used to produce this, as I see a use for it - Instead of blurring or pixelating out people’s faces in photos, use this process!
4 Likes
We did see his girlfriend…guess they had kids…
17 Likes
That thing still saddens the hell out of me.
3 Likes
I have seen this for a couple weeks now as my spouse is a photographer and it spread in her circle first. I call total bullshit on this. It’s fake.
There is no way ANY photog would have altered the faces like that and passed it off. It’s clearly someone wanting a viral story and saying “no really trust me. It’s real”.
No. I don’t believe you. It’s fake. Fuck off.
14 Likes
The sweet old lady did it with the best of intentions, and the original wasn’t any kind of remarkable piece of art. It has been good for the nearby town, and also to make most of us laugh, so, while I understand your point, I am personally not too sad about it. 
4 Likes
Maybe this whole thing is fake, but the business is real. According to Bizapedia, the name “IMagery by Lesa Hall” was filed in Missouri as a fictitious company, which is another way of saying DBA (doing business as).
Bizapedia info: https://www.bizapedia.com/mo/imagery-by-lesa-hall.html
Also, “IMagery by Lesa Hall” recently had a holiday pet photography event in Missouri: https://www.facebook.com/bpsCreveCoeur/photos/gm.122731201844611/1769706919708450
In any case, Lesa blames her teachers, but I think she was just a terrible student. See the curriculum here:
https://catalog.stlcc.edu/programs/digital-media-digital-photography-certificate-specialization/#semesterbysemesterplantext
(these are the classes she took, according to her LinkedIn profile)
11 Likes
So . . . here’s an opinion from someone who has been doing intensive digital photo retouching and manipulation since before Photoshop even existed. (Yes, kiddies, it was possible.) This is not the work of someone who “knows nothing” about digital photo work.
There have been a few comments about how grandma’s face was pasted in repeatedly. It’s not just her face; it’s her entire head, including her hair. It’s identical in each shot, shadows and all. The give-away here is that her hair has been meticulously blended into the backgrounds. That’s not an easy thing to do under any circumstances. (We’ve seen much worse clipping jobs in major fashion and catalog publications.) The same goes for how the hair has been blended into the pasted-on faces. It’s a good job.
There was also an effort to make the skin tones of the goofy faces match the other tones (arms, etc.). That’s not easy. It also looks like the necks under the pasted faces have been partially manipulated to facilitate a more seamless crossover between real and not-real. Again, not the work of an amateur. An amateur would have simply plopped the faces on, and not screwed with the necks.
I have no idea what created the goofy faces, but it wasn’t poor use of filters or any other effects that you’d find in Photoshop. The key there is that intensive overuse of filters would cause facial features to degrade, and the ugly features here are actually sharp. They’ve been hand-drawn and then pasted in. They’re horrid, but their creation still took skill. As with grandma’s hair blending, the pasted-on faces are pretty seamless.
From a circumstantial standpoint, why would someone who claims to not know how to use Photoshop OWN Photoshop? It ain’t cheap.
I could probably download the images and spend the afternoon picking them apart and coming up with more evidence. But you gotta trust me. This is a hoax.
17 Likes
I dunno, I’d consider that good value for the money. Those results took some effort.
Or a reflector.
I dunno. The supposed photographer has an online footprint going back a number of years, and an effort to create some kind of photography business. So unless this was someone else’s work falsely attributed to her to harm her, I’m not sure what’s in it for her to destroy her career with these. I can see someone who’s totally incompetent screwing things up enough that they felt they had to hand these over, even if it is at the limits of plausibility.
The problem is, they would have had to have spent several years setting up the online identity of the supposed photographer, though - because she does have one. They might have done these to defame the real person, but that seems highly problematic in that they could be sued…
I’ve taught digital art classes - I can believe it (barely).
I think a fair amount of effort would suffice to get the job done. Someone incompetent who kept layering new “fixes” on top of previous efforts could eventually get something like this.
7 Likes
