The Stunning Picture of an Iceberg From an Oil Drilling Manager Off Newfoundland–Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A photo of an iceberg, showing the portions both above and below the water, is circulated with an explanation of where it came from. According to the eRumor, the photo was taken by a drilling rig manager for Global Marine Drilling from St. Johns, Newfoundland. Because the sun was overhead, the picture shows beautiful, blue light from the top to the bottom of the iceberg, which was estimated to weigh 300,000,000 tons..
The Truth:
The story is fabricated. The picture was not taken by an oil drilling worker and is not simple, single photograph. TruthOrFiction.com found and communicated with the creator of the picture, underwater photographer Ralph Clevenger.
Mr. Clevenger wrote:
I created the image as a way of illustrating the concept of what you get is not necessarily what you see. As a professional photographer I knew that I couldn’t get an actual shot of an iceberg the way I envisioned it so I created the final image by compositing several images I had taken. The two halves of the iceberg are 2 separate shots, one taken in Alaska and one taken in Antarctica (neither is underwater). The only underwater part is the background taken off the coast of California. The sky is the last component. It took a lot of research on lighting and scale to get the berg to look real.
We have not posted the picture because the company that has the rights to it has not responded to our requests for permission to use it.