UKC

French politician Éric Woerth caused a Twitterstorm this week after posting a photo from an Alpine climbing holiday in Chamonix. The image shared appeared to show Mr Woerth climbing the Aiguille d'Argentière, but followers noticed something a little 'off': two people in the bottom right-hand corner seem to be stood upright while descending the steep slope. The politician's jacket zip and the position of his rope also raised eyebrows.

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In reply to UKC News:

Pah! Call that lying? Our Boris is much better at lying than that!

In reply to john arran:

Or sitting down on the job: 
https://i2.wp.com/metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/pri_50411466.jpg?q...

In reply to FactorXXX:

Yes, indeed. How on earth have we managed to end up with these two jokers as leaders of what, until now, have been our two main parties?

In reply to john arran:

Ahem; by the alternative candidate being much worse to the party members who voted for them. You might think the party members are stupid but I couldn't possibly comment.

In reply to john arran:

Refuses to be drawn into another Brexit, Johnson is rubbish, but Corbyn is even more rubbish type debate...
As for the original photo, I'm sure it isn't the first time a climber/mountaineer, etc. has rotated a photo for dramatic effect!

In reply to FactorXXX:

...but through ninety degrees!?

In reply to tehmarks:

90° is the obvious thing to do as you don't have to do any cropping...

In reply to UKC News:

Reminds me of the Monty Python classic - "Climbing the North Face of the Uxbridge Road"

In reply to UKC News:

I quite often feel like crawling on my hands and knees when mountaineering.  Just unlucky to get photographed and accidently post it on twitter.

In reply to UKC News:

Eric Woerth's guide has confirmed the photo is authentic and was taken on the Aiguille d'Argentière. He also mentioned that Eric Woerth has climbed the Aiguille Verte, Eiger, Matterhorn, Arête du Diable on the Tacul... This whole story seems to be a political takedown and an example of the media jumping on the bandwagon without verifying information. 

In reply to Some time some place:

That was my first reaction. Yes, the photo makes it look steeper than it is, but so do many, many climbing shots. The UKC galleries are full of them.

In reply to Some time some place:

The one thing I don't understand, if it is authentic, is how the climbers in the background came to be defying the laws of physics?

In reply to UKC News:

The "two people in the right-hand corner" seems to be a different photo, no? I can't see anyone else in the twitter photo.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

You can’t see them in the thumbnail version of the image; you have to actually click on the image. It does look almost impossible for the photo to be authentic and for the people to be standing at that angle!

In reply to alicia:

at a belay?

In reply to Dr.S at work:

When you zoom in on them it looks like they're walking and are mid-stride. Although my eyes are not amazing.

In reply to tehmarks:

It's pretty much obvious to anybody with photographic experience, that the photo is skewed and he is not climbing a vertical wall (the route from the French side is what, 40-45 degrees at maximum?). It's also quite obvious that he is on some slope, and not on completely flat ground, the original was taken neither horizontally not vertically, it was skewed to start with. If you just rotate the photo 90 degrees to the right (like many people on Twitter did), you would get a skewed photo far from proper horizontal as well. The correct rotation would be around 60 degrees or so. Even when rotated such, it's hard to tell the real slope angle without some investigation that I can't be really bothered to do for just an insignificant twitter photo of some (to me) obscure politician, it's hard to tell a real slope angle from a wide angle photo shot downslope on featureless snow anyway. It could be nearly flat, it could be 30 degrees or anything in between.

Nevertheless, whatever it was:

stupid mistake on the part of the guide holding the camera

phone automatically rotating the photo to vertical (when held mid position between horizontal and vertical orientation, the phone can get confused, which is genuinely easy to do by mistake)

or a poor attempt at grandeur

it's still funny

In reply to tehmarks:

It's authentic in that it was taken on the Aiguille d'Argentière. The article insinuates that this was not the case. The actual slope there is about 45° so the photo is approx 20° out, not 90°. Save it on your phone and then rotate to check.