With that one, declarative sentence, 66-year-old Ed Lake says he
launched a very odd hobby.
Or, as the Racine, Wisc., native puts it: "Protecting the innocent,
defending the truth, and recovering the sullied reputations of damsels in
distress."
In other words, Lake is on the prowl for fake nudes, when a celebrity's
head has been digitally transferred onto a nude model's body. And it all
started with that naked photo of Gillian Anderson, or Scully, from the hit
sci-fi series The X-Files.
Physics Behind Physical
Appearance
It looked like an amateur photo, Lake says, that she could have done
before hitting it big on her TV show. Lake saw the photo on an Internet
message board, where "people were arguing: it's real, it's fake, it's
real, it's fake. It was all based on opinion," he says. "I just hate
that."
Lake's passion for the facts turned him on to another hobby as well,
researching every nuance of the anthrax investigation that was spawned
after the deadly mail attacks in the weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. Lake's efforts have earned a lot of attention from law
enforcement, the news media, and the curious.
When Lake started researching the nude photos, he found the picture of
Anderson's head that was used in the fake nude composition. In that
head-shot, an earring hung directly down from Anderson's lobe. Not so in
the altered photo.
Lake explains, "This is the original head-shot, and because they turned
it on an angle the earring hangs at a 45 degree angle." The nude picture
defies the laws of physics, proving there was a cut-and-paste job. Gillian
Anderson defended, the self-proclaimed "fake detective" found his first
case closed.
Pervert or Professional?
Lake, a retired computer systems analyst is a quiet, sweet man who has
a lot of other interests besides serving as "the fake detective" and as an
anthrax investigator. Anthrax and lots of nude pictures — if these hobbies
sound odd and you're thinking Lake is a little creepy, you're wrong.
He approaches the porn deconstruction with a scientist's eye and a
comedian's wit. Look around his Web site, and you'll find Easter eggs of
humor, little comments and pictures that make you laugh. Lake's interest
in celebrity photo analysis seems genuinely innocent and almost clinical.
He gets so much traffic that the bandwidth costs from his ISP can
overwhelm him. If you're curious to see Lake's work, just search for "the
fake detective," and you'll find the site.
A Thankless Job
"This is something they're doing a lot lately where they make her dress
transparent," says Lake, viewing a picture of a come-hither Sarah Michelle
Gellar. The photo looks plausible. Her shirt is so sheer that you can see
her nipples. But Ed didn't think she'd pose in an outfit like that.
"I put out a wanted poster with that picture to see if anyone
recognized or could find me the original photo of the body model," he
says. Sure enough, someone sent Lake the exact photo of the model used in
the nude composite. How did they pick that body shot out of the millions
of images online?
"A mole," Lake says definitively. Lake's online and anonymous helper
recognized a distinguishing mole just under the body model's left breast.
Another case closed.
Lake has never received a thank-you from any of the celebrities he's
defended, but he says he gets his own joy knowing that he's defending his
favorite celebs. So even if you don't get to Ed's Web site, just know
there's a sweet old guy out there downloading porn for good, not evil.
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