Joe Flores supporters? I don’t think so

by David Safier

If you go on the Supporters page of Joe Flores’ website for his Ward 1 city council run, the first thing you’ll notice is that he has no supporters listed. “COMING SOON!” the little graphic proclaims in the center of the page.

The second thing you’ll notice is this photo:

Looks like all kinds of supporters waving Joe Flores signs, right? Actually, I don’t think so. It looks more like someone Photoshopped a bunch of Flores posters into an old pic from an Obama rally.

Let’s look at the evidence.

First, look for shadows on the Flores posters. Not one to be found, even though the pic was shot in strong daylight and the posters are being held at enough different angles that at least one should have a shadow somewhere.

Now look at the circled portions of the enlarged version below.

Starting from the left:

The bearded man in the center is holding a poster that looks like a Flores poster on the right side, but the circled portion is clearly from a completely different poster, probably the original. Sloppy Photoshopping.

The woman to the bearded man’s left is wearing an Obama T shirt. At a rally where people are carrying Flores signs? Doubtful.

The two circles on the guy on the upper right of the photo show an Obama T shirt and hat. So much Obama memorabilia at a recent Flores rally? Again, doubtful.

Sharp-eyed readers may find other visual indications this isn’t actually a rally with a group of mainly African-Americans waving Flores signs. Of course, Payday Joe can prove me wrong by telling us when and where this rally took place and releasing the series of photos of the rally this one came from. If he shows me I’m wrong, I will gladly issue a retraction and apology. I’m not holding my breath.

BONUS PHOTO PROBLEM: Look at the Flores website header below:

It’s the same image as the poster. But if you compare it carefully to the images in the photo, you’ll see the width-to-height ratio is different. The posters in the photo have a taller, skinnier-looking Joe and more elongated letters. I actually figured out the ratios with my handy-dandy computer calculator. In the header version, the width is almost exactly 2 times the height. The posters in the crowd have a 1.65 width-to-height ratio.

My conclusion: to cover the original posters in the photo, the Photoshopper had to change the dimensions of Joe’s “poster,” which is really his website header. But again, if Joe can show me the posters used in the rally — very expensive 4-color posters, by the way — I will add this to my retraction/apology. Again, I’m not holding my breath.