Best shark photo ever?

Here’s the National Geographic Photo of the Year for 2016, (supposedly). This is a pretty dramatic effect and it would be a great photo – if it was real. This is a  pretty good attempt at visual impact, but I’m sorry to say – it’s Photoshop art. Can you spot the clues to this being a fake photo? Give it a try, my 7 clues are below the photo. Are there any other Photoshop clues you can spot that I missed?

1. The strong lighting is coming from the left on the shark but the lighting is subdued  on the surface of the water, no strong highlights on the waves – so they just don’t match up to the lighting on the shark.

2. Note the waves coming straight up out of the water – with that weight and volume there should be a swelling up or surge of water surrounding the dramatic waves, not just cut straight across.

3. Because the shark is so smooth and sleek, there wouldn’t be a large cotton-like puffs of water pushed above his head– they would be trailing more behind him.

4. A bloody mess. I’m thinking this shark had to swim pretty fast to jump this high, so it seems reasonably that the blood around his mouth and nose would have been washed off from that much effort.

5. With the sharks mouth partly open I probably would have made streams of water flowing out of the corners of his mouth.

6. The color of the background is much easier to work with when just a simple fade from light blue to medium blue is used. Looking through the wave at the color of the sky behind the left lower side of the shark’s body, it should match the sky behind it – it’s slightly a different blue color.

7. Water surges would flow up based on the drag of the force shooting up. The dramatic waves flowing up don’t quite match the shape of the shark. A little short on one side, a little wide on the other, and in the middle there isn’t a part of the shark that would cause that large water surge to drag up.

Anything I missed?  If you liked this, please share it with one or more of the social media buttons below.