Today for the first time I came across the "Chan" photograph of an alleged dinosaur survival, and here offer some skeptical thoughts as to the validity of the photograph. The image of the "Chan" cryptid is one of those photographs which for a split second seem totally amazing, before producing a vague impression that something is "not quite right" with the image, the picture thus intuitively rejected as "fake looking". The mind forms this impression almost instantaneously. I suggest some of the reasons producing this impression are the lack of convincing water displacement and shadowing by the supposed creature, (as a physical object).
Such a massive animal should have a marked effect on the water surface around it. The blurring and general attitude of the creature suggest it is moving away from the camera, (if the animal was content to stand still and give the photographer plenty of time, why are there not additional photographs, better composed and from subtly different angles?). However, there is no trace of a "bow wave" made at the front of the animal as it ploughs through the water. The lack of turbidity, (white water or stirred up sediments) make this a very unconvincing picture of a massive animal moving through water.
To explain these points we would have to assume the animal was standing perfectly still, a bit like a lizard basking in the sun. Note the objections in the previous paragraph to producing such a limited photograph from such a convenient subject. In addition, even a large animal standing still would have some impact on the water surface. We clearly see wind-induced wavelets on the lake surface, but these run in the same direction both behind and in front of the cryptid. In reality, waves will bend and curve in response to an "island" obstruction such as that of a large animal standing in water. No such surface response is evident in the picture. In some places, (the neck in particular), there are dim lines that seem to represent the continuation of the wavelets in the background on either side, as if the animal is in fact translucent!
The shadowing in the photograph is another point the eye picks up on as being somehow unconvincing. What appears to be the shadow of the neck reaches outward across the water, (ie, towards the camera), quite strikingly. In contrast, the shadow of the back / hump seems hardly to reach out at all, (the line of "whiteness" along the base of the photograph represents water rather than shadow, so it isn't simply a case of the back's shadow being truncated by the photograph edge). In short, two parts of the same object are casting shadows as if the sun was at two different angles simultaneously.
My conclusion would be that the photograph has been retouched to include an "object" that was not physically there when the photograph was taken. The flat appearance of the object and lack of gradations of light falling across it provide additional support for this view. It is strange that the image has been cropped so as to minimize foreground in front of the creature. I suspect this has been done to remove an expanse of water obviously not being affected by the massive creature supposedly adjacent to it.
I found the suggestion of Miguel Churruca that the object was in fact the head and trunk of an elephant ingenious and intriguing, but I think that an elephant, (or a dinosaur), that was physically there would have left more impressions on the water surface. Pictures of elephants generally show the head and neck to be angular in silhouette rather than the continuous curve in the photograph, and one would expect the detail of the ear in particular to be more prominent and crisp, (unless it has been clumsily removed by retouching).
The experimental fake produced by Aaron Justice has very much the same "feel" to it as the original photograph in terms of the lack of water displacement and shadowing. I know nothing about the history of the photograph, but I doubt that it was produced digitally, since using digital software it would have been extremely easy to darken the silhouette so as to get rid of the unconvincing and smudgy detail on the body, which as Aaron has noted, does not appear to correspond with the expected position of the limbs. More than anything else, this "detail" seems to resemble a continuation of the wavelets on the lake behind, as if the creature was translucent. My guess is that the image was physically retouched with ink many years ago, and that either through age or incompetence, the original background is beginning to show through.
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