Republicans sue to toss out legally-cast ballots

[ThinkingSapien]

soo if the second wasn’t photoshopped why is the first thought to be so…

I don’t know if it is photoshopped or not. Assuming that it is not so though, this ray of light would be an artifact of light directly striking the lens. For a person observing the scene live, this ray would not be visible. It may also be apparent that the light isn’t on trump because it covers everyone in the scene instead of stopping on him.

These types of lens artifacts can be avoided by using a lens hood. In the case of a phone (which won’t have a lens hood) placing a hand over the phone to act as a visor and keeping particles off the lens would also prevent them.

Were this photograph a wider shot, then it may be easier to figure out the location, the orientation of the objects, and the scene, and look up where the sun would have been positioned at that time to make a judgment. But for now, it is an unattributed photo with little information available about it.

As for the second photo, that one is attributed to Samuel Corum. He’s a freelance photographer that is said to have been present at a Whitehouse event on July 9th of this year. According to Samuel, he shot this photo for the New York Times and they licensed the photograph to ShutterStock.com with the ID number 10707081. Corum does respond to questions about the photograph.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

if the second wasn’t photoshopped

I think I found my answer to this on the second photo. Looking up information on the photo, it shows it was taken in the Whitehouse Cabinet room. I looked at pictures of that room. Here is one.

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You can see the light fixtures in the back. Focusing on one…

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The “horns” are in fact a feature of the room. They are the wings of the bird.

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The photo does look to be on the dark side. It may be the case that a fast shutter speed was used resulting in the darker photo. I don’t think the aperture was fully closed because of the slight blur on the background behind Trump. The photo does not look to be photoshopped. It’s possible that color grading was applied. But if the photograph was shot in RAW, then color grading may be seen as a matter of a setting instead of a matter of manipulation.