Are the Bidens giants? Are the Carters tiny? Or are our eyes failing us?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

On first glance, the photograph seems typical enough. President Biden and first lady Jill Biden kneel beside their predecessors in the White House, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, during a trip to Georgia last week.

But look closer at the image — a snapshot of two Democratic leaders with a decades-long alliance — and something appears to be terribly off: Both Bidens tower over the Carters and the rest of the scene, as if they had been transported into a dollhouse.

Link to tweet

After the image was shared late on Monday by the Carter Center, puzzled observers fired off a succession of both joking and serious questions: Were the Carters tiny, or were the Bidens giants? Was the image taken on the set of “The Hobbit?” Are our eyes merely playing tricks on us?

-snip-

Marlena Sloss, a freelance photographer in San Francisco and contributor to The Post, said the image also appeared to have been captured with strong flash and a wide-angle lens.

Although President Biden is kneeling much farther in front of Rosalynn Carter, the flash reduces shadows, a key part of what allows objects to have depth. The resulting effect is that Biden and Rosalynn Carter appear to be side-by-side on the same plane, she said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/04/carters-bidens-photo-georgia-giant/

[Kali]

1. that looks manipulated

I saw the photo here on DU earlier and it didn't look that distorted.

[ret5hd]

2. The Carters were giants, and have...

in this time of dire need, given their superpowers to the Bidens!!!

That is the only explanation needed.

[Hoyt]

3. Frail people in their 90s are usually much smaller and they are sitting. Plus,

aspects of photos are at play as photographer says.

[Ilsa]

4. It's like watching Gandalf in Bilbo's

hobbit hole when the dwarves were there.

The chairs, if the cushions are worn, will practically swallow a frail elderly person.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Look at Jimmy's huge feet. A wide angle lens will distort perspective that way.

[hunter]

6. Whenever I use a wide angle lens I try to give myself lots of room to correct the distortion later.

But it's possible the photographer had their back to the wall.

If you want to know how the photo went wrong look at President Carter's feet.

Jimmy Carter was the first President I campaigned for.

Ronald Reagan was the first President I loathed with every particle of my soul.

[FakeNoose]

8. Photoshopped ... badly

Just sayin'

[Treefrog]

12. Wasn't the photo released by the Carter Center?

I don’t get it.

[FakeNoose]

17. I couldn't guess the reason for it

Maybe the Carters weren't able to pose for the photo, so they had to patch something together? It's obviously shopped but it doesn't mean it was done for nefarious reasons.

[Demovictory9]

9. lol

[Raine]

10. The Carter's look like little dolls. 🤔 nt

[moondust]

11. Was The Carter Center hacked?

I don't think they would release this photoshopped version.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

13. Wide angle lens.

Really poor decision from the photographer.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

14. One of my favorite Twitter responses:

Honey I Shrunk the Carters.

[localroger]

15. I suspect the photographer simply couldn't get far enough away

So he had to take the shot with what would be a very short focal length lens -- I'd guess about what would be 30mm in a 35mm system where a 50mm lens would mimic normal vision. This does introduce a lot of depth plane distortion, but normally there would also be "bowtie" distortiion of the perspective. I suspect the bowtie distortion was corrected digitally to make all the parallel lines straight and parallel, but this makes the depth distortion more jarring because it's not apparent that this is a wide-field image.

[FSogol]

16. They'll all giants in my book.