Real or Fake?

Can you tell if these images are real? With the advancements in photo editing software and the hope that photographers show single-frame images, it is getting increasingly hard to determine if a shot is one frame or a composite. The first one that really caught my eye was published online in the National Geographic Your Shot Daily Dozen on October 1, 2009, and then again in the June 2010 National Geographic magazine.

Original submission by William Lascelles. Caption information below:
Backyard Airshow
"My parents live very close to the city airport and every other year they host an air show. This year the Blue Angels were the highlight and were flying over the house during performances. I took my father's dog outside and made him pose!"

Guess what? This is fake.

When enough readers of the magazine saw the photo, the editors at NatGeo asked for proof that the image was real. So Lascelles submitted another shot "the next frame" to confirm the photo's authenticity (with the dog's head turned and the planes farther along in the sky), but eventually admitted that the second one was a composite as well. 
The Your Shot rules specify, "Please provide only the original, unmodified camera image."

Read the response to the discovery on Adventure Journal, and read the original column on NationalGeographic.com

Here's another: This was was the published Photo of the Day from December 5, 2013.
Photograph by Veselin Malinov
"A huge ocean storm, Porto, Portugal, January 2013
(Editor's Note, December, 2013: Since first posting this picture, we've received additional information. In order to show waves both in the foreground and background, two images were blended together.)"

The admission of the composite was even posted in the caption! It is a compelling image, but it's not a single-frame photo. 

Here are some "perfectly-timed" photos that I found on DesignTaxi.com:
via imgur
I believe these are all real (one would hope), and I can never pass up an opportunity to show the breaching shark video:


I know that photographers will continue to be at the right moment at exactly the right time to capture the most amazing photographs. With the right conditions, you can capture the world in the most breathtaking way. If you want to use Photoshop to manipulate your images, just admit it. Never try to pass off a composite as your original shot. The world can spot a fake...

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