
Two Photographers Unknowingly Shot the Same Millisecond in Time - shawndumas
https://petapixel.com/2018/03/07/two-photographers-unknowingly-shot-millisecond-time/
======
TehCorwiz
This has always been one of my favorite photographic coincidences.
[https://calculatedimages.blogspot.com/2013/05/3d-lightning.h...](https://calculatedimages.blogspot.com/2013/05/3d-lightning.html)

~~~
lervag
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~~~
hmottestad
Fyi. This is the cert I'm getting:
[https://imgur.com/a/D1RQ2](https://imgur.com/a/D1RQ2)

~~~
vardump
No foul play, also managed to get same cert you got (with public key 92 e0 55
f9 af 61 0d 7e 7e db 21 84 d5 dc 59 21...).

Perhaps Google uses multiple certs with same Common Name on different servers.
If so, I wonder if there's some security benefit.

Or what could the reason for that be?

~~~
cat199
I could see rolling N copies out so if you needed to revoke one set, another
set could remain functional..

------
cozzyd
Not nearly as improbable, but one time I was reading the New York Times and
happened upon the top picture in this article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/insider/freezing-
temperat...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/insider/freezing-temperatures-
glacial-winds-volcanic-dust-all-in-a-days-work-for-a-times-team-in-
antarctica.html?smid=pl-share)

Not only did I find that I was (barely) in the picture, but I had a picture of
the photographer either before or after he took that picture (not at the same
time, obviously, since I was turned the other way at the time of his picture):

[http://kicp.uchicago.edu/~cozzyd/coincidence.jpg](http://kicp.uchicago.edu/~cozzyd/coincidence.jpg)

~~~
dahart
Improbable or not, that's great! Two people taking the same photo with phones
seems likely these days, but accidentally discovering a picture of yourself
taking a picture of the photographer, published in the NYT, that's an awesome
coincidence.

I love how completely and dramatically different those two photos of the same
place and time are. The reporter was telling a story of somewhere remote and
hard to get to and barely touched by humans. One single sturdy but old
Siberian looking truck and a half dozen crazy scientists in front of vast
stretches of nothing but snow. And yours is showing a bit more of the day in
the life there for humans standing next to an airport. The real dot on the i,
and extra minor coincidence is the jet taking off right next to the reporter's
head. Both photos are true, and both photos, one could say, give misleading
impressions taken only on their own.

~~~
cozzyd
It's quite possible I was trying to take a picture of the plane taking off, so
that might make that aspect less of a coincidence.

------
yangyang
I had the same thing happen with one of my photos of lightning in London. I
actually thought my shot had been ripped off at first glance, then realised it
was from a different angle.

Mine:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/beechlights/2739042419/in/phot...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/beechlights/2739042419/in/photolist-5b3iTi-5bn2YL-5b7BMC-5b3iCe-83tPjj)

Alternative, from the Telegraph:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/2515...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/earth/2515652/Summer-
lightning-over-southern-England.html?image=7)

~~~
ger_in_no
Looks at first sight like much of a bigger coincidence, but given that you
probably both used a long shutter speed (yours seems to have been 6s) and
selected the nicest of a number of shots, it's not like there are crazy
chances against getting two almost identical shots like this.

~~~
yangyang
Oh yeah, I don't deny it isn't insanely improbable. Still, finding same strike
in a newspaper, shot from a very similar angle, was quite surprising.

~~~
tabio
Nice quadruple-negative.

~~~
craigds
Surprisingly readable!

------
patorjk
I had a similar thing happen. While browsing Google Maps I found what looked
like a poorly cropped version of one of my photos:

My photo:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/40423570@N07/35437050686/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/40423570@N07/35437050686/)

Their photo:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fort+Armistead+Park/@39.20...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fort+Armistead+Park/@39.2088089,-76.5366746,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipMPspVZ2yDYFzRhYdxSFvjOvJXZdFpSih51WqAC!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMPspVZ2yDYFzRhYdxSFvjOvJXZdFpSih51WqAC%3Dw203-h114-k-no!7i5312!8i2988!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c801efdd1d2c55:0x9329693e99d0e4b0!8m2!3d39.2092808!4d-76.5355479)

However, upon inspection I realized there were differences. It kind of blew my
mind that someone had taken a picture of the same sunrise at the same time,
from almost the same spot.

~~~
ghaff
>It kind of blew my mind that someone had taken a picture of the same sunrise
at the same time, from almost the same spot.

Depends on the spot. I'm sure that, on any given morning, there are probably
shots taken in a place like Zabriskie Point that are effectively
indistinguishable. (Of course, once there are moving objects in the frame,
photos that look identical become much less likely.)

~~~
patorjk
That's true, though this particular spot isn't very popular. Until recently,
I'd never seen someone else take a sunrise shot from this particular point of
view (the beginning of summer is when the sun is closest to the bridge, and it
only rises close enough for a good sunrise photo for around 2 weeks). And when
I took my shot, I actually thought I was alone in the park.

------
skrebbel
This is typical birthday paradox stuff right? The chance that _these two_
photographers would ever snap the same thing at the same time is small, but
the chance that any two photographers, anywhere, would do so is, I bet, pretty
big (even if you factor in millisecond precision). With photographers being
photographers and the internet being the internet, there's also a pretty
decent change that they'd find out about it and write a blog post like this,
no? :-)

~~~
RivieraKid
> but the chance that any two photographers, anywhere, would do so is, I bet,
> pretty big

Not necessarily, but the the chance of _any_ crazy coincidence happening and
reaching HN homepage is quite big. Next time it might be two people with same
name writing the exact same tweet independently. Or perhaps one guy winning
the World Series of Poker two times in a row with the same winning hand.

When there's a million "kinds" of crazy coincidences, the chance of any one of
them happening is much higher than chance of a specific one happening. This is
kind of a selection bias, we only hear about the coincidences that happened.

~~~
jat850
I'm curious about your WSOP mention - did you single this one out because it
(remarkably) did happen before? Or were you speculating it could happen again
in the future?

~~~
RivieraKid
Not aware of it happening before, just a random example.

~~~
jat850
Interesting! For reference, it did happen once before. In 1976 and 1977, Doyle
Brunson won the WSOP with the same hand - 10-2 (a terrible hand), and it's now
named after him.

The odds of the same person winning the WSOP now at all are significantly
smaller as the fields have grown so much, never mind the compounding of
winning it with the same hand twice :)

(To clarify, it was not the _exact_ same hand - different suits in each case.
But still pretty remarkable!)

~~~
RivieraKid
Oh, I was only vaguely aware that he won twice in a row, so I included an
additional condition cause I wanted something that didn't happen. But I guess
that subconsciously I had the fact that it was the same hand in memory.

------
brudgers
[I felt like I was playing "Find 8 differences between these pictures" on the
comics page]

I looked at the large images. Gendon's appears to have been shot slightly
earlier based on two differences. 1. The crest of the background wave at the
left is horizontal in Gendon's photo and turning down from photo left to right
in Risman's. 2. The trough in front of the breaking wave has reached the front
of the light house in Gendon's photo exposing a sunlit rock at the lower left
of the low circular structure.

A rock broke wave is most photogenic at the moment of maximum spray extent.
The water is at lowest velocity and the gestalt shape is briefly frozen...then
gravity dominates and the moment collapses. The shape of the spray is the
second most stable element in the scene. While it is the defining photographic
moment, it is not clock correlated down at the millisecond level.

~~~
logfromblammo
I looked at the two photos as a stereogram--focus through the plane instead of
crossing your eyes.

If they were identical, there would be no 3d effect. My eyes can't figure out
how to resolve the foreground waves, because the photographers were too far
apart, but the spray wraps around the lighthouse as you would expect.

~~~
cecilpl2
As a side note, it is possible to train yourself to stereogram your eyes at
will (I've done it).

This makes "spot the difference" puzzles a triviality.

Which is, in itself a triviality, but an entertaining one.

~~~
jerf
I actually got a slight amount of use out of this recent with one of the Super
Mario Odyssey hint arts:
[http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/super-
mario...](http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/super-mario-
odyssey/1/1d/DarkS_22-2.jpg)

I also recently discovered you can make plain-text stereograms:

    
    
        O  O  O  O O   O O   O  O  O  O  O  O
    

I'm sure I'm not the first but I was still amused.

~~~
logfromblammo
It helps to use registration marks to establish the base focal plane. Compare:

    
    
               <>                    <>
        O  O  O  O O   O O   O  O  O  O  O  O
    
    
               <>                   <>
        O  O  O  O O   O O   O  O  O  O  O  O

------
jastanton
I once plugged my usb cable in on the first try. Goes to show you anything is
possible!!

Edit: upon further inspection it turns out it was USB-C. Nevermind, all is
right with the world :)

~~~
LesZedCB
i know it's a joke, but the usb logo on the plug is always on top, so you can
just orient it 'up' according to the underlying board (up for laptops, and
facing left for desktops)

~~~
tabio
Ok I'll open up my computer case to see which way the board is mounted.

~~~
sudojudo
He already told you, left is up.

The side of your case that has the motherboard's backplate (where you plug
everything in) is the bottom. On the vast majority of towers, the plate is on
the right side, meaning left is up.

EDIT: right/left when looking at the front of the case.

------
jv22222
A few months back I gave a Trader Joe's blueberry muffin to my son.

[https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=B7329F0C-B3E6...](https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=B7329F0C-B3E6-11E2-9B11-1231381A4CEA)

As usual I cut it in half straight down the middle. As usual I paid no
attention to cutting it. I was just about to hand it to him when I noticed
something strange, so I quickly took a photo...

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tjrwql37i7ujjn/muffin.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tjrwql37i7ujjn/muffin.jpg?dl=0)

The chances of the cut aligning the way it did, the blueberries lining up the
way they did, the cut cutting the blueberries exactly in half, the blueberries
ending up in this exact formation, me buying this specific muffin, the
rotation of the muffin when I cut it....

Well, it just seems impossibly unlikely for something like this to have
happened, yet it did!

~~~
stctgion
The fact that the blueberries sunk to the bottom could indicate that there was
too much liquid in the mixture

------
ScottBurson
I would love to see these in a stereoscopic viewer. If they really were taken
that close together in time, and given the huge binocular separation, there
should be a hell of a 3-D effect.

~~~
panic
Check out the comments at the bottom of the article -- "trialex" put together
a "wiggle gif" version
([https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42ab07151119e1a3d5a43fa...](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42ab07151119e1a3d5a43faabdeee0d2ffe523624565abc2206c37966793bb16.gif))
and "Michael Wise" posted a cross-eyed version
([https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2903120ac9e726088a33b8d...](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2903120ac9e726088a33b8de9c30e703b297242a95d294371e5d3b6855605517.png)).

~~~
pure-awesome
Wow! They should make this into an actual one of those stereographic pictures!

------
lmnt
It's possible to judgde the relative positions of the photographers by eye
based on some of the waves directly under the lighthouse. In Eric's picture
there are some distinct crests immediately below the lighthouse door. In Ron's
picture the exact same crests are on a diagonal line from the door toward the
lower left corner of the frame. Tracing this imaginary line "out of the
picture" would lead us to Eric's position, which means that Eric is to the
left of Ron.

------
comex
Literally the same millisecond (according to timestamps), or ‘only’ the same
tenth of a second or so (as demonstrated by the pictures being near
identical)? Those would both be unlikely and remarkable events, but one is 100
times more unlikely than the other :)

~~~
aidenn0
Timestamps are not useful for this since the cameras clocks are likely off by
more than a millisecond.

I think a millisecond is too strong of a claim, but it's almost certainly much
less than 1/10th of a second. (a simple though experiment that you could turn
into a real experiment if you have a camera: If you take a 1/10th second
exposure of something like this the magnitude of the motion blur will be much
greater than the differences between the wave shapes on the two cameras).

~~~
carlmr
So if two people are shooting in burst mode, and both have an overlap in their
shooting burst of say 2 seconds with 5 images per second. Then the chances is
already (2 * 5)/1000 to land a picture in the same millisecond.

You'd expect in 100 burst of pictures taken like this for one to be taken at
the same millisecond.

It's not that unlikely. What's more unlikely is that they selected the same
shot and found out about it. This probably happens multiple times every day,
just by virtue of the billions of people in the world taking a photo every
day.

------
cbaleanu
When I first joined my local photographer's club, one of the masters there
told me that I need to accept that all the photos I will take will have been
probably already shot by someone else. Obviously not that realistic, but
articles like this sure make it sound more plausible.

~~~
prayerslayer
> all the photos I will take will have been probably already shot by someone
> else

> Obviously not that realistic

Depends on how literally you want to take it. Lighthouses have definitely been
photographed before. Photos depicting the man vs wild nature archetype too.

------
arthurofbabylon
Totally cool, but not unlikely. With the sheer volume of high-end cameras and
photographers using burst mode, this will certainly happen time and time
again. It’s likely that this happens several times most days.

Some simple math: one camera was taking a photo every 143 milliseconds
(roughly) and the other every 196 milliseconds (roughly). If both sit in burst
mode continuously, I would expect these cameras to share the same millisecond
(meaning each photograph took place within 1 millisecond of the other) every
28,000 milliseconds (roughly) or every 28 seconds.

I’d also argue that the details of this ‘unplanned’ event increased the
likelihood that two photographers would select the same photo out of a series
of bursts - didn’t the author say only about 3 images came out nice? Well, I
imagine the other photographer had the same experience.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
[https://www.theonion.com/police-slog-
through-40-000-insipid-...](https://www.theonion.com/police-slog-
through-40-000-insipid-party-pics-to-find-c-1819594819)

------
abdulhaq
The amazing thing here is not that they took a photo of the same thing at the
same time, but that this fact was discovered.

With the vast data capture exercise that is the internet, coincidences and
patterns can be identified in near real time. Making sense of it all, however,
is not so quick :-)

------
lobster_johnson
Cool idea for a service like Flickr (or at least Flickr in its prime, which is
not now) to exploit -- given EXIF data and a database of photos, one could
find all the photos taken in the same location at the exact time. While almost
no cameras embed GPS information, I bet there are ways to infer the location
in many cases.

~~~
phamilton
This was in fact the business of the infamous Color startup[0]. For those not
familiar, they raised a ridiculous amount of money, then shut down and
returned most of it to the investors. My favorite memory of Color was when
they became a landmark when they bought a massive office in downtown Palo
Alto, got hit with zoning restrictions which forced them to use the ground
floor for retail or leave it empty (they left it empty).

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs)

~~~
overcast
I had a similar project prior to Color coming out with it. No one seems to
care about proximity photos for events.

------
murukesh_s
5d's image looks remarkably better in terms of colour depth and details..
wondering whether it's due to the sensor size (full frame vs aps-c) or some
other factor?

~~~
sgk284
As is shared in the article, the largest contributing factor is likely how
Lightroom was used during post-processing.

~~~
antongribok
Although there are differences in post-processing, you can see significant
differences in quality in the zoomed-in crop:

[https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/03/Compare_with_ci...](https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2018/03/Compare_with_circles.jpg)

This is not surprising considering we're comparing a 60D that was released in
Aug 2010 and a 5D4 released 6 years later.

~~~
pizza234
That's true, but Risman is clearly very liberal with photoshopping ("moon-
stitching" liberal), and it seems to me that that's the largest factor.

The turquoise tone in the waves has been overlayed (it's fake, in other
words), and I bet other areas of the photo has been very heavily modified in
an artificial way.

I would be curious though to read a professional analysis, since this is a
very interesting (and I think rare) case of how a photo looks before and after
fabric... I mean, after "art has been applied". /s

(Also, I wonder if Risman used a polarizing filter, while Gendron didn't, as
it generally contributes to this type of difference (deeper blue tones, and
increased resolution due to dehazing)).

------
me_again
[http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/102182393150/...](http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/102182393150/vemödalen-
n-the-fear-that-everything-has) is a lovely philosophical rumination on this
kind of thing.

------
Jetroid
Reminds me of the time when my sister and I took pictures with very similar
composition of the sky - and you can see the same clouds in each photo.

[https://jetholt.com/connected-minds/](https://jetholt.com/connected-minds/)

I love things like this.

~~~
exodust
Sorry but this is not coincidental or crazy in the slightest!

You both snapped a picture of the sky _minutes_ apart on your way home because
the sky looked nice. Okay, so what? There is nothing unusual about that. The
photos are different. Clouds in different positions, different focal length...
I don't see "connected minds". I see "hey, cool sky" [whips out smartphone,
snaps photo].

~~~
Jetroid
Compared to the source article, it's relatively mundane. I don't claim
otherwise.

I'm not a photographer. I don't claim to be. Maybe this event I experienced
seems much more common for someone who describes themself with
'dev/design/photo/animation', but for me it seemed pretty unlikely. I don't
take photos often (The last photo I took in my gallery of my smartphone is
dated December 2017).

The crazy thing for me and my experience was how close in time the two images
were (considering neither of us are photographers/regularly take photographs),
and how you can match the patterns in the sky to estimate my position relative
to hers. Something like this had never happened to me before.

One man's junk is another's treasure and all. :)

~~~
exodust
Sure, okay... all good and no offense intended, but... .

> _I don 't claim otherwise_

You kind of did by making a web page called 'connected minds', saying
"something crazy happened today", describing the photos as same clouds and
"near identical", then sharing the link.

Be prepared for feedback when you do that! This isn't about me asserting
myself as photographer in the room. We all carry cameras.

It sounds like you both live at same location, you were on way home, snapped
photo of sky at similar times, as probably others in your neighborhood did.
I'm not calling that "junk", I'm just not sure the claims you make equal the
event! But let's move on.. all the best, take more photos! I checked out your
homepage... Wow, now _that_ is crazy! :)

------
cbsmith
Alternate title: two photographers learn about the birthday paradox...

~~~
spuz
Not really. The birthday paradox is a paradox because it describes a
circumstance that seems unlikely but actually is not. In this case it both
seems unlikely and IS unlikely. If it were not unlikely we would see it happen
more often.

~~~
carlmr
Like I posted somewhere else here, it likely happens hundreds of times a day
(going by millisecond granularity and # of photos being taken per day in close
vicinity in the world). That people afterwards see each others photos and find
out about it is rather unlikely.

It probably happens most days in the Louvre at the Mona Lisa. Although she
doesn't move very much.

~~~
exodust
So it's a publishing coincidence rather than a photographic one.

------
garyfirestorm
We are sorry about that glitch in the matrix.

------
danschumann
I'm glad this isn't a horror story about one person suing another, thinking
they had stolen their shot. Happenstance fun-ness is better!

------
DennisAleynikov
that is absolutely incredible! Very happy they actually figured out its not a
copy and different lightroom effects. It did seem slightly different positions
in the original compressed images.

------
goblin89
Two professional photographers having independently selected the exact same
frame from two different bursts they captured with their cameras is an
interesting instance, illustrating the pro-AI argument in photography and
possibly adjacent creative domains.

Grossly simplified, two humans went through dozens or hundreds of shots with
identical internal “algorithm” and did the same work twice. This shows that
the algorithm can be “abstracted away”, and the work can be done for them by
the machine.

I can roughly see the counter-argument to be made, considering true creative
self-expression and art losing value as its hardest aspect becomes optional
(“natural selection” of produced work via artist’s taste)—but it’s hard to
argue, in the light of this example, that professionals would find such a tool
indispensable.

~~~
gjulianm
Sorry but I do not agree at all. First, the fact that they chose the same
photo might not necessarily mean that photo is the "optimal choice" according
to some algorithm: it can perfectly be a coincidence. I find it even more
improbable that a tool that selects "the best photo of a bunch" is useful for
a significant portion of the photographers (as in "it gives results according
to their tastes") unless it takes into account only basic measures and they
can use it in specific instances (e.g. find the photo with the best light
exposure).

~~~
thaumasiotes
> First, the fact that they chose the same photo might not necessarily mean
> that photo is the "optimal choice" according to some algorithm: it can
> perfectly be a coincidence.

Well, obviously it does mean that; the photo was the optimal choice according
to the _two_ algorithms used by those photographers to choose their picture.

Does that mean it would also be selected by another equally good or superior
algorithm? No. But it does necessarily mean that the photo is the optimal
choice according to two algorithms.

~~~
ada1981
The algorithm could simply be "randomly select an image from all the burst
frames."

~~~
thaumasiotes
True, but the image in question would trivially be optimal according to that
algorithm, as it considers all images equal. If all images are equal, there is
no image better than this image.

------
JepZ
I wonder why they had to look at the iron bars to find the difference in
position. If you look at the waves in the foreground the difference is very
obvious.

Nevertheless, quite cool incident. Not just that they took a very similar
photo, but also that they found out that they did.

~~~
mannykannot
The author addresses the displacement of the foreground waves: "I know those
things are easily moved using the clone stamp in Photoshop", and he
demonstrates it in the accompanying video.

~~~
JepZ
Yeah, but that is related to the photo being a rip off. Manipulating the bars
in the tower would be even simpler.

~~~
michrassena
One thing I do for a hobby in addition to my usual interest in photography is
enhance images in the public domain (e.g. combine the color separations of
Prokudin-Gorskii's images into color images, merge multiple images to reduce
noise or create a panoramic image, or find stereo pairs of images a lay them
out for cross-eye viewing -- so in the same spirit, without as much work as
those who colorize historic images).

With that background, it's apparent there should be enough parallax, even
given the long distance to the subject due to the claimed distance between
photographers to create a stereo pair using the two images (some photographers
make hyper-stereo images of mountains and clouds). If one image were derived
from the other, it should be obvious -- the differences between the images
would only be skin deep, e.g. the waves in the foreground, the different
position of the bars at the top of the tower, but the entire body of the wave
would be identical.

Overlaying them and subtracting the difference, it can be seen that there are
slight variations across the entire image, and when viewed as a stereo pair,
there is an obvious stereo effect, the platform in front of the tower appears
in space in front, the wave appears to wrap around the tower.

What we're left with is the story that these two photographers didn't
coordinate their images. I see no reason to disbelieve this. Like was stated
elsewhere in this thread, the title is incorrect and the images weren't taken
the same millisecond, so that makes the story less remarkable.

------
linkmotif
> and ultimately we both selected the same photo from that day to promote.

That’s the funnest thing about this story imo. These kinds of photographers
shoots hundreds or thousands of photos in half an hour. It’s wild they were
both struck by one particular exposure.

------
sib
Things move a lot in a millisecond, although it's certainly easier to see that
in small-scale images rather than this lighthouse one.

[https://sib.smugmug.com/Sports/Baseball/SEA-
DET/i-jhrMkC3/A](https://sib.smugmug.com/Sports/Baseball/SEA-DET/i-jhrMkC3/A)

This is a picture that I took in 2009; you can see the ball coming off Ken
Griffey's bat after breaking it.

A major league fastball comes off the bat at 100+ miles per hour (45 m / s).
The shutter speed was 1/640s (about 1.5 msec). The ball is about 7.26 cm in
diameter.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Nice example. To make your point clearer: that motion blur is how much the
ball moved in just 1.5ms

~~~
sib
Exactly, thanks for clarifying.

And also why I was shooting with single shots to try to time the ball close to
the bat. Given a camera that took about 5 frames per second (200msec between
frames), the ball would move about 29 feet (8.8m) in between frames.

The breaking bat was a nice surprise.

------
hamoid
In 2006 I shot a different kind of coincidence that made me wonder about the
uniqueness of our actions: 10 minutes apart, two unknown men walking on a
street, both with jeans, black jackets, white hoodie/cap, black shoes, the
same leg in front and with their feet on the same spots on the ground:
[https://hamoid.com/post/2006-07-dimensions-of-the-
city/](https://hamoid.com/post/2006-07-dimensions-of-the-city/) (photos #7 and
#8)

~~~
teel
Off topic, but I am trying to get my head around the photo #14, it's almost
like an optical illusion but not quite! Looks almost like a photo that has
been mirrored vertically but since the men are in different position, the
halves must be different photos (one mirrored). How did you get the hoses line
up at the middle position? I'd like to hear how this photo was created!

------
gpvos
I find it fascinating that the waves look so different when photographed from
a slightly different position. Maybe the waves also change faster than the
spray around the lighthouse?

~~~
bschwindHN
The closer you are to something, the more quickly it appears to "move" when
you shift your viewing position. The waves are much closer than the lighthouse
so as you move left or right, their perceived position moves more quickly than
the lighthouse. I guess the technical term is parallax?

~~~
gpvos
Yes, when looking more thoroughly I could recognize the waves in the two
images, indeed moved quite a bit.

------
asafira
While the coincidence is real ... why couldn't these shots have been 1
millisecond off from one another? The shutter times are short enough for it...

I know it's nit-picking, but why make that the title?

Otherwise, it's also definitely worth noting that these were shot with burst
mode, so that the chance of this happening is ~.7% --- definitely very
unlikely, but still much more likely than most rare events you read about in
the news.

------
jordache
the same sub second... splash's movement frozen in time is not at the ms level
precision....

Also the scenario described here is not that rare.. Once you have two photogs
there that day, your chances of getting the same shot is already pertty good.
The two photographers were essentially firing off continuous shots when they
anticipate a wave hitting... Everyone was focused on the lighthouse...

------
mrfusion
This would make an interesting copyright case.

~~~
cooper12
I found some discussion of copyright infringement by imitation here:
[https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&con...](https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=scholarship#page=19).
[0] In general it seems to be fine to photograph the same object as an earlier
copyrighted work, as long as "original aspects" are not copied such as
lighting or placement of the subject. The lighting is different here, though
the placement barely differs. There's also not a clear "first" since the
photographs were taken almost simultaneously. I think at the end of the day, a
judge would chock up any alleged infringement as _de minimis_. [1]

This also brings to mind the image of paparazzi or sports photographers all in
a narrow press area rapidly shooting off pictures. I don't think any of them
have had trouble selling their photographs to agencies despite being in the
same location and capturing the same subject simultaneously.

[0]: Kogan, Terry S., "How Photographs Infringe" (2017). Utah Law Faculty
Scholarship. 20.
[https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/20](https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/20)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis#Copyright](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis#Copyright)

------
ronreiter
Statistically, this is actually really not that surprising.

Both photographers take multiple shots with a short shutter, usually from the
same places, and usually trying to pick the same events. So the only
coincidence is basically having two photographers be at the same place and
time.

------
juanmirocks
With probably hundreds of photographers at pretty crowded/famous spots (say
sports, famous buildings, or nature places) and using long shutter speeds,
should not these improbable coincidences be not so improbable?

~~~
estebank
It's a picture of waves crashing at high shutter speeds to be able to sharply
capture the scene. having the same picture of a person (slow moving) or a
lightning (slow shutter speeds) is much easier.

------
politician
If two photographers shoot the same millisecond in time, who owns the
copyright?

In this example, there were discernible differences, but what if the
differences were below our level (or care) to discern them?

~~~
publicfig
No one would likely have copyright over the actual event (or if they did, it
would be a separate discussion). Each photographer could have copyright over
their image they took.

~~~
politician
Even though their images are identical?

------
imron
I'm reminded of that quote by Gordon Letwin talking about software bugs and
rare events - "in our business one in a million is next Tuesday"

This was the next Tuesday of the photography world.

------
anonymfus
Maybe somebody could use these photos to legally destroy concepts of creative
input / originality in non staged photography and remove copyright protection
from such works.

------
thinkloop
Wasn't he shooting continuously for 45 minutes? That's 3% of a day. Wouldn't
he have a shot of the same millisecond of any photos taken during that time?

~~~
rangibaby
There are 1000 ms per second, the camera he used takes 7 frames per second.

~~~
thinkloop
With the described margin of error, that would be more than enough for
"identical" photos.

------
intrasight
I see a lot of differences in the waves, so I'm doubting the "exact
millisecond" statement. Perhaps within a few tens of milliseconds.

~~~
rsp1984
I think that difference is due to the different photographer view points. Both
observers center on the lighthouse but from different standpoints. Everything
in front of or behind the lighthouse will look different, even if they caught
the exact same nanosecond.

------
rqs
I don't know what come to your mind after reading that article, but mine was:
Oh man! Canon 5D Mark IV is truly far better than 60D.

Shopping cart added.

~~~
mcbits
That is one hell of an impulse buy. Would you care to hear my sob story and
startup idea?

------
iampari
Amazing how different cameras capture the same picture from almost the same
angle at the exact same time in totally different color tones

~~~
kornakiewicz
I believe its's more due to post-processing in Lightroom.

------
jaxtellerSoA
And Ron is the better photographer. The other photo is a little bit over
exposed.

This assumes that both photos were not edited.

~~~
cphoover
Ron already admitted his was edited with adobe lightroom.

------
ehosca
this is really not all that hard to do ... all you need are 2 photographers
equipped with cameras that can to better than 12 frames per second (EOS 1Dx
for example) and fire away simultaneously at the same subject ... then go
through the bursted images and find the files that match ...

------
Sarve6
This is one of a rare coincidence.

------
neilwilson
Law of large numbers.

It's why we exist at all.

------
conmarap
That's very interesting. Try to think of what the probability of that
happening is.

------
Aardwolf
" ... the lighthouse had slightly different spacing between the vertical bars
compared to my image. This would indicate that the other photographer was
likely standing just a little bit left of where I was standing."

I could already tell that from the shift of the white caps on the waves midway
in the ocean

------
Aloha
This would be the perfect occasion to make a stereoscopic image.

------
erric
You can get a nice magic eye effect from the photos, too.

------
hi41
This made me so happy! I have a glee from ear to ear!

------
burfog
Copyright requires original artistic expression. If two people do the exact
same thing, that is in doubt.

------
wellboy
Acshually...this happens thousands of times every day, due to a phenomenon
called collisions.

------
sparkzilla
Snap!

------
mimr9
that was stunning!

------
iamalchemist
Wow!

------
alex_young
The waves look very different, especially on the left side

------
imagetic
This happens a lot. You could probably find 20 photographers in my area who
capture frames with the same timestamp during a sunset by a lighthouse.

------
kgp7
If you look at the waves in the water you can tell they are different.

------
omgPhysics
Same millisecond? Prove it... I would buy same 10ms. If two cameras with frame
rates of about 8frames/sec were shooting at random, the probability that they
are in the same millisecond is very low, like 1.5% or so. If they were in the
same 10ms interval... more like 14.5%! Actually not that low, and the apparent
difference in the waves might not actually be significant in 10ms (supposing
the water was at it's maximum height 10ms^2*9.8m/s2=>less than a mm of
movement!). Suppose that within a cm the photographs look the same, then this
implies a time interval (at max water height) of 31ms. Over 31ms given the
snapshot intervals there is about 38% chance of the photos being of the same
'moment'.

------
isubkhankulov
The skeptic in me thinks this was planned. Yellow submarining given that the
author is selling something

~~~
DennisAleynikov
would be insane if it were a marketing stunt too! Taking the same picture of
the same moment of a huge unplanned wave would be a feat worth of the
marketing purpose.

~~~
cozzyd
Well you could trigger pictures from the same clock and wait until something
interesting happened...

~~~
y4mi
the article says that at least ron was shooting for 45 minutes. Which is an
average time, but if you consider how many photos a modern camera takes per
second...

its technically possible to plan, but just as likely to happen on accident.
And its definitely a wonderful example why the idea of intellectual property
for photographs is a flawed concept.

But its not an easy topic and photographers still need to earn their living.
That means some protection from publishers that just take their shots without
paying.

