Right when my friends laughed at me for sending my usual wish list to Santa Claus, I found new proof of the supernatural, thanks to Brian Ledbetter, who points out just how special KJI’s powers are in this recent bit of proof that KJI is not dead, but I’m just not sure how the power flows, for example, is KJI and his crew floating in the air, as in “I told you fools to float, so do it now!” or are they so supernatural that they cast no shadows?
{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }
Ghostly indeed.
Looking at the other pictures, I couldn’t do anything but wonder why North Koreans plant trees in their stadiums.
And what’s with installing streetlamps in the middle of what seems to be a dirt driveway?
they’re simply standing in a shadow.
Maybe “judge”, maybe, but then it may be the supernatural at work.
Wow, is this real? It almost has a social realist feel to it.
Seriously, how do we know this isn’t some counter psyop product geared toward undermining any possible faith in the north korean ‘dear leader health’ claim?
I’ve never photoshopped but I can do better than that.
Makes it easy to photoshop vegas strippers into the background I guess.
@judge judy
even standing in a shadow, they’d still produce some their own slight shadows on the ground. Notice that the first guy is casting a shadow on the guy next to him and…aww for fucks sake, have you never seen a photoshopped picture?
Photoshop’s magnetic lasso is a pretty miraculous tool, isn’t it?
But the inability to render shadows by the manipulator is pretty amateur.
I can understand why the last guy is floating, since it appears KJI is holding him up by his nostril.
All the shadows are up in Russia cutting down trees to pay off DPRK debt.
Can anyone photoshop the picture to make it look right? I’d be interested to see the comparison and how easy it is to do.
If the light source is right behind the camera, the subjects cover their own shadows. Here it looks like the light is coming from quite high, hence the shadow of the guy on the right and KJI’s slight shadow on the wall.
Look at this picture—around the plane’s shadow, the plants appear to have no shadow. Further out, they do.
http://www.ngsprints.co.uk/images/M/684483.jpg
Or possibly not…
And what’s with installing streetlamps in the middle of what seems to be a dirt driveway?
And only one of the streetlamps has a shadow. I think this was intended to be pop art. Expect to see hundreds of knockoffs of this on the streets of Beijing by Thanksgiving.
People not in direct sunlight casting no shadow:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/377645821_fa33167940.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/p_t_v/Colombia/blowdart.jpg
The harsh light on the man on the left could be because of camera lights.
#12,
Dude, it’s a bad Photoshop job. Just look at how he seems taller than everybody else. KJI is 5’4″, not 6’4″. It also looks like they cut and pasted KJI’s head from another picture.
KJI has the body and facial characteristics of a Namdaemun market money changing ajumah. After he dies, he will surely go down as one of the fruitiest looking leaders in history.
I think this is a Photoshop job. Reuters lists this photo as being “QUALITY FROM SOURCE” which I assume means it came from the DPRK, digitally. I’m looking at it right now in Photoshop and it does look more like a paste-up job. There is a very odd shadow hanging off of KJI’s coat and if that is a real shadow, then the photographer is doing some odd lighting. There is tell-tale pixelation surrounding all of the figures that looks more like a paste job rather than being lossy compression artifacts.
If the DPRK would hire me, I would do a great job and tell no one, but they must pay me in Euro; if those little Moroccan beggar kids won’t take USD, then neither will I.
Why bothering shooping when you have 1000s of unreleased photos from years past?
# 12,
Obviously fill flash was used here. You can tell because there is a hot spot on the neck of the guy closest to the camera to the far left.
Fill flash would create a shadow, even a slight one.
Dude, it’s a bad Photoshop job.
I didn’t say it wasn’t a photoshop. I was just showing pictures where people not in direct sunlight cast no shadow since someone was saying that couldn’t be done.
Someguyinkorea (#2) I don’t think that’s a dirt driveway. I think it’s field grass that turns yellow brown in the winter.
So it could be a photoshop or it might not be but a better question is why? Is this photo also photoshopped?
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0g2k1dNakO04K
http://www.daylife.com/photo/01Htb6eeyd6lo
If the indoor sitting photo is real and the outdoor standing photo is fake what does this show? Why photoshop one when you have a real one? Maybe KJI is alive and doing fine but he can’t stand up? If the indoor sitting photo is real then it looks like it’s autumn so is it from autumn 2008 (which means KJI is doing fine) or is it from an earlier year?
I don’t ask these to disagree but I think the photoshop accusation itself brings with it many interesting questions.
I use to be a photographer… and I use photoshop a lot.
Another thing about this photo is pretty darn clear. If you look at the lighting, you can tell it was taken in a controlled environment, probably indoors. It was pasted on to an outdoor setting to show that it’s autumn, to attempt to show that it’s a recent pic (which of course it’s not).
It was pasted on to an outdoor setting to show that it’s autumn, to attempt to show that it’s a recent pic (which of course it’s not).
What do you make of the other pictures that were released?
No, it’s an overhead flash. The shadow of the guy on the right, the shadow of Kim Jong Il’s sunglasses, and the shadow of Kim on the wall support this.
Flashes can sometimes flatten a picture. They also create a controlled environment.
The comment about installing streetlights in a dirt driveway is provocative facile idiocy. I should know.
I’m on the fence (I need to see this with better resolution). I’m not a photographer but I’ve seen unmanipulated pictures that had an effect like this so I’m skeptical of the skepticism. Do the skeptics also think the indoor photos are also photoshopped?
If they are not photoshopped then what does the “photoshopped” outdoor picture attempt show that the undoctored indoor photo does cannot show? The only difference is that KJI is standing in the “photoshopped” picture but not the other.
His left arm looks listless in both which I think is sometimes the result of stroke but could just as easily be nothing. Maybe I’m seeing something just because I’m looking.
“I think it’s field grass that turns yellow brown in the winter. ”
It might be, but then you have to wonder how there could be a green strip of grass in the middle of the field, one that has a clearly defined edge at that.
“The comment about installing streetlights in a dirt driveway is provocative facile idiocy. I should know.”
No. It was meant to be a reference to how North Korean propaganda often defies logic at the expense of the message it tries to convey. In this case, I suspect the streetlamps were placed there to give the impression that North Korea isn’t the impoverished country that it is. Streetlights also suggest a strong energy producing capacity, in other words, nuclear power stations.
Correction: for the benefit of the message its trying to convey.
It might be, but then you have to wonder how there could be a green strip of grass in the middle of the field, one that has a clearly defined edge at that.
Hmm… maybe they’re at a football pitch.
Correction: it’s
“Hmm… maybe they’re at a football pitch.”
I think you’re right. It still looks fake, tough.
“Hmm… maybe they’re at a football pitch.”
The photos’ captions say they are watching a soccer game between two military teams. You can see the goal next to one guy’s head.
http://www.daylife.com/photo/01Htb6eeyd6lo
I don’t know if anyone else will get it but when I look at the Reuters picture I see an ad next to KJI that says:
“I Hate My Belly Flab”
My 1 Secret To Losing Weight! No Diet, No Exercise.
BrianasWeightLoss.com
#28,
If the pictures haven’t been doctored, and it appears that at least one has, they’re still no way to be sure that it really is Kim Jong Il. Just looking at his official pictures, I’d say he’s had at least 5 doubles in recent years.
…no, I don’t think he died in 2003 like this guy claims…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/08/2358528.htm
…but, I am convinced that he’s sending one of his doubles out to photo ops because he’s in poor health and/or worried of being assassinated (just like Qaddafi and Hussein have been known to do).
In conclusion, this is a doctored photo taken years ago of a fake KJI.
But the inability to render shadows by the manipulator is pretty amateur.
I hope all you “experts” realize you are setting yourselves up to be kidnapped to the Worker’s Paradise.
Is there historical precedent for a leader dying and the country keeping it secret for years? What’s the world record? What was the average back in Joseon and Koryo days, both inside the country and outside? They sent reasonably frequent missions to China didn’t they?
I have to believe that if these really were shopped photos, at least to any extent provable through a pixel-by-pixel analysis, that someone would have reported on this evidence and it would be out there somewhere other than on random comments made on an obscure blog. I think he had a stroke, is in very bad shape, possibly bed-ridden, and these are photos taken last year or the year before but only released now to catapult the propaganda.
#34,
Wait and see. It took the press nearly a week to notice that the last set of pictures couldn’t have been taken in October.
Could it be that there isn’t a factory version of Photoshop in the DPRK and they’re using something ancestral?
Re: #20
I’m with you. Let’s first assume the photo is _real_ (it’s not, but bear with me) let’s break down the lighting in this photo:
1. Despite wearing black, the subjects and their clothes are brighter than the background, which means they had to be artificially lit or otherwise reflectively-lit.
2. If lit, then they can be either spot-lit or softly lit (huge lighting surface area).
3. If spot-lit (which _could_ avoid shadows if done perfectly on-axi), I’d expect to see specular highlights on the more reflective parts of the subjects, but there are none.
4. If softly lit (very wide light source) to avoid noticeable spectral highlights, I’d expect to see diffused shadows on the ground, but there are none.
So, that leaves only one conclusion : the subjects were lit using different lighting than the background, which means a poorly done copy/paste Photoshop job. Heck, they could have at _least_ taken 30 seconds and used a drop shadow (layer style effect) to cast a basic directional shadow, but no.
There’s lot of other mistakes (clues) as well, but that’s perhaps the easiest one to spot.
MigukNamja:
3. If spot-lit (which _could_ avoid shadows if done perfectly on-axi), I’d expect to see specular highlights on the more reflective parts of the subjects, but there are none.
Is this true also if there were more than one source of artificial light (meaning multiple lights like they might do in a videotaped shoot of some event)?
There’s lot of other mistakes (clues) as well, but that’s perhaps the easiest one to spot.
What are they? Please answer within the next twelve hours.
newest group photo just out…
you guy must love this (no need to understand the language, but for for those interested, the title said “if your body is striaght, no one can bend your shadow” — the phase is originally for those who are not afraid of rumour
)
http://www.bullog.cn/blogs/wenyunchao/archives/203169.aspx
“sunbin”, we are mere mortals compared to the zealous Chinese netizens who desire to reveal the supernatural at work:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200802b.brief.htm#022
what can i say? they have been well trained and got used to be skeptical, with these photoshop riddles coming up quite regularly from various sources.
some quotes from the Chinese commentators you would love
“KJI is the sun himself, so there should be no shadow at all”
“the title is wrong. a more appropriate title should be ‘if the shadow is upright, it doesn’t matter if you body is crooked’ ”
– the blogger obliged and changed the title accordingly
Oh my word, man, that first quote is hilarious!
I read other translated comments from some Chinese posters and, boy, some of those guys are harsh and funny, even in translation.
talking about their creativity.
in chinese, the character il (Sun literally) could also mean the dirty four letter word (Fxxx).
so literally
kim jong-il, also means “kim is fxxx’ing” (jong also means “at this moement”)
kim il-sung, also means “kim finished fxxx’ing” (sung — means completed successfully)
so Sr finished doing (his country) while Jr is doing it.
p.s. one commentator tried top right-saving that photo in that blog, guess what the file name is?
the scientific american and some other blogger (neal krawetz) seems to say there is not enough evidence to say they are tempered. you may want to submite th photo above to that blogger for comment as well.
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=did-north-korea-fake-photos-of-kim-2008-11-10
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/230-A-Fire-In-Their-Heart.html
You must log in to post a comment.
{ 4 trackbacks }