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People are questioning photos showing crowded public places, saying basic camera tricks are making it look like people are ignoring social distancing orders

People are questioning photos showing crowded public places, saying basic camera tricks are making it look like people are ignoring social distancing orders

Sophia Ankel

Surfers walk along the reopened Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on April 28, 2020.Loren Elliott/Reuters

People are calling out photos circulating online that appear to show people not adhering to social distancing measures in public.
They say that carefully-chosen angles and camera lenses are creating an illusion that people are standing close together when they actually aren't.
Photographers and news outlets are also publishing side-by-side photos to show how easily images can be manipulated.
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As the world continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing has become as important as ever.

Many photos circulating online have appeared to show people not adhering to social distancing measures in public, prompting criticism.

But now, some of those photos are being called out for being misleading.

Social media users, as well as a Danish news website, are attributing this to simple photography tricks: using a different camera lens to make it look like people are not social distancing, even though they are.

Scroll down to see how some photos of people supposedly breaking coronavirus guidelines can be deceptive.

Read the original article on Business Insider

People have since posted their own examples of the photography trick, using simple everyday objects to show how easily these pictures can be manipulated.

Several experts have weighed in on this photography trick. Photos taken with a telephoto lens draw people closer together, while photos taken with a wide-angle lens shows how far they really are, they say.

Trevor Lloyd, a senior camera operator for the BBC, told BuzzFeed News that the use of different lenses can change the appearance of depth in a picture.

"Wide-angle lenses (24mm or lower) exaggerate perspective, telephoto lenses (over 135mm) compress it," he said. "The pictures from the Twitter thread are an absolutely textbook example."

Zooming in on photos can also make people look like they are closer together.

Source: JOE

Vic Micolucci, a local reporter in Jacksonville, Florida, also posted two very different pictures of a local beach after it was reopened on April 17.

Source: Business Insider

Carefully-chosen angles and different camera lenses can create the impression that people are breaking social distancing rules.

The debate began when a Danish news site published side-by-side photos of various public areas in Copenhagen. While the images depicted the same scenes, their perspectives were dramatically different.

Source: TV 2

Some people on social media are questioning photos that purportedly show others not honoring social-distancing measures.

People stand on marks maintaining safe distance in Lahore, Pakistan, on April 25, 2020. Loren Elliott/Reuters