I'd like to take a moment and just for the fun of it, officially debunk one of the most popular photos out there representing
Hood River Oregon. Here is the photo:
I only bring it up because I've seen the photo countless times on websites and blogs and people saying stuff like "look how amazing Hood River is! This photo is totally real!"
The second I saw this photo I knew it was a huge fake. Why?
#1) Mount Hood is waaaaaay too large. Yes, it's easy to make Mt. Hood look larger than life by using a telephoto lens to shoot Hood River and Mount Hood in the same frame, like in the image below. But in the fake photo, the foreground (Cliff, River, Town, etc) is shot with a wide angle lens and the mountain was a separate photo shot with a telephoto lens, and pasted in using photoshop. If you look closely, you can actually see the line where it was pasted in at the base of the mountain.
#2) The mountain is pasted in what seems about 30 miles too far to the West. I'm not exactly sure where the foreground photo was taken from, but the photographer was East of the bridge. The mountain would be far out of the frame to the East... here is a photo proving that!
#3) I think this part is really funny. Even if the size and placement of the mountain were fine, there is still another huge problem. Why is it winter in town, and summer on the mountain? Fresh snow covering the ground and trees in town, but lots of bare rock and dirt at high elevations on the mountain!? What kind of sense does that make??? Not much :)
#4) Lastly, what happened to the 30 miles of land between Hood River and the base of Mount Hood? All of Hood River Valley is gone including Odell, Parkdale, Middle Mountain, the West Hills and Mt Defiance... they don't exist in that photo!
I have no idea who originally photographed/photoshopped the image but I almost wonder if it was a joke to see if people would believe it? It seems nobody really questions it!
Ok that's enough of that. Just wasting some time on a quiet Saturday morning :)