Photography: Amazing Coincidence

A Mystery in Two Photographs

An incredibly rare coincidence uncovered by chance

A few days ago I was browsing through Medium, being a good reader and following whatever the algorithm throws at me.

Whenever I click on a story from the “teaser” because I’m attracted by the title or the thumbnail image, the all-seeing Medium eye notices and serves me up more of the same next time.

So if you are getting a steady stream of junk stories, it may not be the overall quality of Medium writing, it may be your taste for clickbait.

One photo…

This story came up.

Milerage runs and travel and photography. I’m on board with that!

The guts of the article by the extraordinary @amethystqu is that there is a Statue of Liberty on either end of a New York — Tokyo flight. Another one in Paris. And Vegas.

Smaller and with not quite so many tourists, at least for the Tokyo example. The Vegas one is pretty touristy; I’ve stayed at that hotel.

A good story. Amethyst is an entertaining and prolific writer, and I clicked the “Follow” button because I wanted more of the same.

There was one photograph that caught my eye. It’s the middle one in this low-res screenshot of the article I’m reviewing:

As Amethyst notes, it was a dull and flat day, so not great for photography and I must admit that the monitor I was reading the story on could use calibration.

Nevertheless, it’s not a bad shot. The lower tip of Manhattan is pretty spectacular and I must say that the Staten Island Ferry is amazing value. It’s free, for starters.

Another photo…

Great composition, I thought, shame about the haze and lack of “pop”. I wonder what the same scene looks like on a sunny day with sparkles on the water and reflections off the glass skyscrapers under a deep blue sky.

So I did a reverse image search and found what looked like the same shot on a few stock photography sites.

Not exactly the same photograph. The two shots are from slightly different angles but on close examination they must have been taken within a second or so of each other. The relative positions of the skyline buildings and in particular the attitudes of the construction cranes are exactly the same. Even the flag on the tugboat has the same flutter.

This is extraordinary. I’m not suggesting that there was anything untoward going on. The subject and setting is distinctive and any photographer worth their salt would have had their camera raised and be clicking off shots.

Amethyst Qu and Simon Vollmeyer (the photographer credited on the stock site) could have been standing on different decks on the same ferryboat at the same time.

This sort of thing has happened before.

On the third of March 2018, two photographers were shooting images of waves crashing against Whaleback Lighthouse in New Hampshire. Standing just 28 metres apart, sheltering from the weather and each invisible to the other, they shot continuous images of the same wave event and both naturally chose the most spectacular moment to share on social media later that day.

Sharp-eyed observers almost immediately began asking questions. Had one photographer copied the work of another? There were a few minor differences, but hey, Photoshop.

With some forensic examination by the two, each certain that they had taken their photograph and each in possession of an original file, it was just coincidence.

Has the same thing happened here?

I wish I knew for sure. The two photographers on the same trip of the Staten Island Ferry are Amethyst Qu and Simon Vollmeyer, neither of whom appear to have any other images in common, though both have credits on Amazon and Goodreads for published works.

I left a private note on Amethyst’s article, asking for more details.

But they blocked me!

Obviously nothing to hide.

I contacted the stock photo site, and they assured me that their copy has no evidence of tampering.

Herr Vollmeyer lives in Germany and Amethyst Q lives in the USA — because Amazon’s Kindle Vella only allows American residents into the program — so they can’t be the same person.

Ergo, two photographs taken by two different people within a few seconds and metres of each other, each unaware until I noticed.

Britni