Spiderman

Status: Real
image Here's an odd image that I found posted on a computer graphics forum, where it's the subject of debate about whether it's real or photoshopped. (They've even got a poll going about it.) I would vote that it's real, even though it's amazing that the kid could jump that high up on the wall. (Though with a running start, and being young and athletic enough, it's do-able.) If it's photoshopped, it's incredibly well done.
Update: It's been revealed as real. Apparently this guy (Ryan) has a talent for this kind of thing (jumping and seeming to stick to things).

Photos

Posted on Wed Nov 30, 2005



Comments

IMHO it is fake. See the fluorescent lamps over spiderman? There should be a shadow downwards.
Posted by cocinero  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  02:05 AM
Yes, the shadow is wrong and the foot is flat on the wall. I guess that Spiderman sat on a floor with the same tiles.
Posted by Mikkel  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  02:46 AM
Haven't you guys heard of parkour?
Posted by davetolomy  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  02:51 AM
That's physically possible to do (I did it when I was younge) and one would only need a high-speed camera to capture the specific moment when the guy touches the wall. _However_, the shadows _are_ in suspicious angle.
Posted by VL  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  04:19 AM
I'm remodeling a house in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Just about every day, the kids across the street from the house I'm working on are out in the front yard practicing fencing, and other types of combat maneuvers. Some of the moves are quite impressive (especially when they are running on the walls). Chances are that they could duplicate this photos manuever. Some of their moves look like they are right out of the Matrix. And for those of you who are not familiar with fluorescent lightings shadowing, should look into it. Each bulb present over an object projects it's own blurry shadow, giving the result much like the one shown in the photo. My vote is the same as Alex, plausible, or a DARN good Photoshop...
Posted by Christopher in Joplin, Missouri  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  04:44 AM
There is a little sign on the wall that seems to have a diff. shadow than the boy. I'd say PSed.
Posted by Pinkish  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  05:11 AM
Sure, a person could do that, but this guy didn't. That plaque on the wall next to him, if you zoom in enough, is actually raised up off the wall. The dark border is a shadow under it. It's at the same level as his top hand, yet the shadow there isn't nearly as deep.

Posted by Steph  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  05:15 AM
The WC sign isn't flush (no pun intended!) witb the wall but it does appear to be atached to it. You can see a section of the bolt between the wall and the sign (left hand side). Some Parkour moves are even more spectacular than this. I'd say it's real.
Posted by Andy  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  08:03 AM
the line between the wall and the lights doesn't look right to me. I think he posed like that on a floor. his left foot is flat. it would likely be arched or bent if he really jumped up onto the wall like that. I say fake.
Posted by andy  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  10:04 AM
It's real. And totally cool.
Posted by booch  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  10:21 AM
I could do it back in the day I used crystal met....nevermind. Its a fake.
Posted by Craig  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  01:09 PM
It's real. It was probably done with a high-speed camera. You folks are looking too much into the shadows.
Posted by Dan  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  01:39 PM
it would be funny if someone did something like that and posted it on the internet just to see how many people would say it's a fake. lol
Posted by Yushi  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  01:58 PM
It's very possible that could be the case. And it's not like that's physically impossible either, the camera isn't telling us the exact amount of time the guy was on the wall for. In High School this one kid was showing off his acrobatics or whatever you want to call it by running up the wall and doing a backflip and such. He also did do that little Spider-man thing like in the picture when he was jumping onto the roof of the school when we were in an enclosed corner.
Posted by Dan  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  02:39 PM
It's SO fake. Look at how sharp and clear his foot is. OK, as a photographer to capture a "real" move like this (i.e the guy can run up a wall, and gets that high for a split second) you'd need a good 1/1000 sec shutter speed. From my experience, shooting in a hall way at ISO 400, typical exposure is maybe 1/30 sec at f 2.8 (to expose the shadowed side of the kid).

Assuming this was a 2.8 lens (not common on low-to-mid digicams but once common on film cams) a maximum aperture we're talking a 5-stop or better difference in exposure to get up to the action freezing 1/1,000 (6 stops for 1/2,000). So on a digicam higher end models can boost their "film speed" or ISO. But we'd need an ISO of 12,800 for this set of parameters. AFAIK no camera goes this high, and if they did the image would be WAY noisier.

So we need a magic camera that can shoot high speed indoor action shots!

And even if we did, there's STILL motion blur as you move outward from the center of gravity.
Posted by Steve  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  03:10 PM
Then please explain to me, if you will, how it's possible to photograph a person jumping? The movement in jumping is faster than the movement in crouching down on the side of a wall from what I've observed.
Posted by Dan  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  03:20 PM
i think it's real. about his foot: it is _not_ flat on the wall. look closely.
Posted by ginster  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  03:36 PM
Several things bother me about this picture:

1. The first thing I noticed was the shadowing. The light appears to be coming from behind and below him...not from above.

1. His left pant leg is pointing up. If I stand up and put my leg at a 90 degree angle to the floor, my pant leg immediately hangs towards the floor. His pant leg seems to defy gravity.

3. The guy in the hallway behind him looks like he is looking up too high to be actually watching the guy jump on the wall.

4. This doesn't mean anything but I noticed on the ceiling just above the fluorescent lights, there are sections broken up in equal intervals by what looks like single support beams...except for the one above the guy on the wall. That one appears to be two support beams that aren't quite flush against each other. No where else in the picture are any of the support beams doubled up like that.

Just my observations.
Posted by Saribellum  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  04:41 PM
one additional observation....i can't count
Posted by Saribellum  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  04:42 PM
"1. His left pant leg is pointing up. If I stand up and put my leg at a 90 degree angle to the floor, my pant leg immediately hangs towards the floor. His pant leg seems to defy gravity."

You merely lifting your leg up is not an accurate portrail of the gravity in the photo. If he were jumping at wall towards the camera and he stopped for a moment to pose as in the picture, the pant leg would keep going forward at first, and then be stopped when the back of the pant leg his the back of the leg. It's easily possible the picture was taken during that brief moment in the pant leg's journey.
Posted by Dan  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  04:48 PM
I just don't buy it. It's not a scanned photo, so it was taken with a digicam. Excepting a super-expensive model, which I consider unlikely these kids have, you're not going to get that quality of image in this situation. The guy's pose is overwhelmingly static in what MUST be a high-movement moment. It's just possible that this image was captured at that magic instant of perfect equilibrium when the forward momentum has dissipated yet gravity has yet to begin exerting, but come on, this IS the internet. 😊 Far more likely (to me) that this is PSed. If you were the perpetrator of this photo, would you be more likely to be showing off the one-in-a-billion photo you took, or your photoshop skills? *I* could 'shop this.

<a >This image</a> shows the pic rotated, and the guy's position is completely consistant with that angle too.

Two words: Occam's razor. 😊
Posted by Steph  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  05:32 PM
D'oh! Dude just revealed the answer on that forum.
Posted by Steph  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  05:52 PM
Any good skateboarder could do this. It would just take a couple of shots to get the timing right.
Posted by minime  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  06:04 PM
It looks as though there are additional lights or windows along the right-hand wall. It's not just the overhead lights. Plus, if these kids were doing a proper photo shoot, they may very well have brought along some additional lighting of their own.

And as far as the boy not being blurred by motion, he wouldn't necessarily need to be in motion while on the wall. It's like when you throw something upwards into the air: for a brief instant at the very top of the object's arc, it has no motion. So if the photographer here was either very good or very lucky, he could have caught his friend right at that instant when there was zero velocity.
Posted by Accipiter  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  06:55 PM
Guys, it's real. Like the person said above, the dude has already come out and explained how he did it.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2872082&postcount=86
Posted by Dan  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  07:00 PM
Heh, my favorite part of this whole discussion was the "photographer" who said it was impossible.
Posted by J  on  Thu Dec 01, 2005  at  10:58 PM
Now people, would you believe that you could do this, spin 360 degress on the wall and land on your feet?

Probably you wouldn't but you can...

Its just people don't consider what they don't know. A lot of David belles stuff looks impossible but its not because he does it...
Posted by davetolomy  on  Fri Dec 02, 2005  at  09:12 AM
haha i find it funny that it's actually real but everyone says it's so fake and starts to pick out every little detail.
Posted by Yushi  on  Fri Dec 02, 2005  at  03:02 PM
the shawdow is actually entirely possible, if the right side of the picture has some kinda of window or some kind of a strong light source(anything stronger than the fluorescent light-which is not very strong), then the shadow could easily go flat instead of down
Posted by Tom  on  Fri Dec 02, 2005  at  06:57 PM
Re: the shadows

In the blog that's been referenced, he said the wall is opposite some windows and bright sunlight (brighter than the flourescent lights) was coming in those windows. That's why the shadows indicate a light source perpendicular to the wall.
Posted by Big Gary in Eddy, Texas  on  Sat Dec 03, 2005  at  10:49 AM
I can't find anything wrong with this picture, and it depicts nothing unusual but a guy rebounding on a wall. The still image makes it look as he is crawling like a gecko on the wall, which he is obviously nt doing. And the perspective from the photographer makes it look as he is jumping really high, which is also not the case. By projecting the lines in perspective towards the observer in the back you might guess he is just three or four feet above the ground level.
Posted by Eugthehuge  on  Fri Dec 09, 2005  at  12:00 PM
Saribellum:
2: Inertia
4: By the Exit sign they are closer together.
Posted by Ian  on  Wed Jan 04, 2006  at  11:25 AM
Lol... pitty the guy who did this Picture didnt realise that Shadows fall away from Light, never towards it...lol..

Oh well, we cant have a world full of great minds, so we settle for the few of us that there is..!!
Posted by SpiderMax  on  Mon Jul 17, 2006  at  06:34 AM
You guys who think you're all photoshop pros are idiots. I was there when this photo was taken, it's real. This guy Ryan is a friend of mine and he has several other "spiderman" photos as well. The shadows are real, they only look different because he is not a flat piece of metal an inch away from the wall...duh. Quit being dumb you guys. Grab your own camera, and try it yourself, you'll be surprised how easy it is if you can actually jump high enough and get the pose right. You people who say its fake based on all these different reasons are retards. And as far as those lights go, they are more ambient, they don't let off a lot of light in the downwards direction anyways, they just look brighter than they are in the photo. Like I said...I was there. There are huge windows behind Ryans back that you can't see in the photo, that is where the main source of light is coming from.
Posted by Bilbo  on  Wed Jul 26, 2006  at  12:48 PM
^^
I completely agree. I was there as well, and actually behind the photographer when this was taken. I like reading the replies, though. It's funny to see so many people try to be experts even after the proof was posted. It was taken using a Canon Powershot A70 (hardly high-end equipment), and we were part of a digital multimedia course, which explains how we had access to such "super-expensive" equipment.
Posted by Jeff  on  Wed Jul 26, 2006  at  12:52 PM
This is too funny, yes infact the picture is real, the guy Ryan in the picture is my boyfriend and he has a collection of pictures he has taken like that, that by far has to be the best one though, but i think it's funny people think the shadow is wrong when infact the picture is not photoshoped. people not everything is fake lol
Posted by Spiderman's girlfriend  on  Wed Jul 26, 2006  at  04:52 PM
Dude you guys realize that this post was from December, right? Some of the people that posted in this thread don't even come here anymore.
Posted by Dan  on  Wed Jul 26, 2006  at  04:55 PM
It's real, the shadows are a little weird because on the right side there are huge windows... thats where natural light comes from and gives the awkward shadows, i know, ive been there, and know ryan... ive witnessed it, annnnnd, i have been to that same place
Posted by Jen  on  Thu Aug 03, 2006  at  11:13 AM
whats with his left thumb? its freakishly long!
Posted by dean  on  Fri Aug 04, 2006  at  06:16 PM
Wow, the maturity of you two knows no bounds. Great work.
Posted by jeff  on  Thu Aug 24, 2006  at  11:53 AM
i think its fake look at the shadow behind the closest leg and u will notice the shadow is facing upwards towards the light, well i may not know much :p i do know thats not normal....
Posted by oshash  on  Tue Oct 24, 2006  at  04:20 AM
hey i thought it looked pretty sweet i've done some of the same sorta things as you guys well go comic book fans around the world we'll be in control one day
Posted by chris  on  Mon Dec 04, 2006  at  11:01 AM
salut cava
Posted by mehdi  on  Tue Dec 12, 2006  at  07:41 AM
It's not that high to jump. All he'd have to do is set up a camera, wait till the buzzer was fixing to go off, and jump up in that position as soon as it does. He can't simply "stick" to things naturally.
Posted by Josh  on  Tue Dec 19, 2006  at  06:32 PM
My cousin does stuff like this all the time at his house. Its gotta be real, because the lighting is fine. I work with photoshop professionally, and that isn't a fake., you can usually see the clone marks from a cut and paste.
the WC plack on the side is also fine. the bolts hook it in partially into the wall, giving it the floating effect. Construction thing I picked up from my cousin as well.
Posted by Nightwing  on  Fri Jun 08, 2007  at  11:36 AM
i think tis fake..that guy looked to nerdish to be able to perform smthing like that..he looked more like a pro photoshoper to me
Posted by evilsmivle  on  Sat Jun 23, 2007  at  08:03 PM
im a pro photoshopper and im not a nerd. i've won the state boxing champion title for 4 years runing and if any of you say a word against us photoshoppers again, i'l hunt you down and prove to you that we're not all nerds! boxing is just my hobby. i work in a movie merchandiseing company that deals with the art work for packaging and advertising.
Posted by only 5 hundred million stars to go  on  Sat Jun 30, 2007  at  03:16 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.