Michigan beats Indiana playing with a paraplegic most of the game

Submitted by maizenblue92 on

As you can clearly see from the picture below in the Detroit News Zack Novak is playing with NO legs. Zack Novak 640x700 Michigan won last night despite playing with a paraplegic

Mitch Cumstein

February 2nd, 2012 at 10:29 AM ^

I have no clue about photography, but maybe someone who does can shed some light on how that is possible.  Is there some extent of Photoshopping that goes into newspaper photos and they just messed this one up?

HartAttack20

February 2nd, 2012 at 11:05 AM ^

Maybe I'm wrong here, but Novaks legs just happen to be behind his body when the picture was taken. You can see one of his shoes up by the IU players shorts. Took me a few seconds to put that together. I figured it was photoshopped at first. Awesome picture, nonetheless.

befuggled

February 2nd, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^

Basically, they're not supposed to do any more than they need to do in order to convert the raw file captured by the camera into a JPG or a print-ready image. The photographer would certainly get in a lot of trouble for removing legs. I think HartAttack20 has the right idea.

(You do see editorial photos that have been manipulated, which is justified by the fact that they're editorial. It can be controversial anyway.)

UMichYank11

February 2nd, 2012 at 10:31 AM ^

Looks like photoshop to me.  I didn't watch the game so I will more than likely be off, but why is Novak on the ground when it looks like the IU play has full and utter control of the ball? Is this the new dive defense I keep hearing about?

Wisconsin Wolverine

February 2nd, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^

If you go to the website & take a look at the blown up version of the photo, you can see what appear to be Novak's black shoes just over his left shoulder.  I'm thinking that it's not actually photoshopped, just a really weird position that only someone like Zack Novak could twist themselves into without shattering their spine.

ST3

February 2nd, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^

It's almost like the game is too easy for Novak, so he decided to increase the degree of difficulty by doing push-ups while guarding IU. And these weren't just the normal push-ups, these were the jump up and clap your hands style push-ups, all while having no legs. I'm impressed.

Don

February 2nd, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^

First, there would be absolutely no reason for either the photographer or the News to engage in fakery; their professional credibility would be at stake. If it were photoshopped, whoever did it or authorized it would probably lose their job.

Second, I've looked at the photo carefully, and there are none of the telltale signs of two photos being merged. In particular, look at Novak's hair—one of the hardest things to do in photo retouching is dealing with hair against backgrounds, and you can see individual strands of Novak's hair. I'm not saying it would be impossible to do, but it would take time and therefore money.