About

National Geographic Great White Shark Photo refers to a composite image of a shark jumping out of the water which was falsely identified as National Geographic's "Photo of the Year" in December 2016.

Origin

In December 2016, a digitally edited image of a created by Shutterstock^[2] user Alexyz3d began circulating on Twitter falsely described as "National Geographic's Photo of the Year," with some attributing the photo to a fictional photographer named Bob Burton (shown below).

Spread

On December 4th, 2016, Twitter user @foomandoonian^[1] tweeted Alexyz3d's images, noting that the National Geographic claims were fabricated (shown below, left). Shortly after, Twitter user @PicPedant posted a link to the Shutterstock page for the original image (shown below, right).

That day, Gizmodo published an article about the viral image. The following day, Snopes^[3] published an article titled "Not-ional Geographic" listing the claim that the shark image was an award-winning National Geographic photo was "false."

Search Interest

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External References