So as it turns out the photo I had sent to me of an ususpecting kayaker being gobbled up by a humpback whale was a clever fake.

Thanks to a reader of our blog for turning my attention to this article on about.com.

Call it a miraculous feat or a foolhardy stunt — either way, it's too good to be true. A peek at the metadata embedded in the foregoing image reveals not only that it has been Photoshopped, but also by whom: Tim Shobe, a photographer in Sitka, Alaska.

A search of Shobe's online gallery produced an exact match of the image minus the errant kayaker. I contacted Mr. Shobe to inquire how and why the doctored image came to be. He was kind enough to share the story:

Being bored one night and looking through my images, I came across some photos of whales that I took and then one of my friend Richard from here in Sitka while he was in his kayak. These two images were from two completely different times and locations (roughly 3 months apart). I came up with the idea to create a manipulated image with the help of Photoshop to use as a small piece of entertainment for a few of my friends on my email list. The whale image of mine that I used for this piece was one of many captured during a day in which I blessed to have witness several humpback whales bubblenetting and lunge feeding. I will not give the exact location, but it was in March and near Sitka.

As so often happens, someone forwarded the message outside the list of intended recipients, and it took on a life of its own. "It’s been all around the world and back," Shobe marveled three months after first sending it out, "and MANY people think/thought it was real!"
Here’s another one that got some attention while swimming about the internet.