Look at this photo of Emma Watson in the Burberry Spring 2010 campaign

Just look at it. I reached out to Burberry for comment on the image above, which has been described by some as a Photoshop Disaster, but have not received a reply. What do you think? (Thanks, Souris)

Previously:

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Mitch

Wow, she looks remarkably calm for someone with a badly dislocated right hip.
zmmrmn

Her leg is being is leg. Stop looking for Jesus in a loaf of bread people. Stick with Demi (more interesting).
Antinous / Moderator

She splinched.
- Anonymous
  
  FTW
- MasterSauce
  
  Ha. Thanks for that one.
  
  Kinda shrugsville otherwise.
tyger11

Oooh, when she sees that, she’s going to be hopping mad!

It’s just a flesh wound!
Suburbancowboy

It’s the sure-fire weight loss plan for 2010! The Chop Off Your Leg Diet! Instant weight loss guaranteed!!!!
Anonymous

invisibility tights?
Anonymous

Harry Potter and the Listless Leg
trr

No big deal. She’s standing on her left leg, and her right leg is behind his left leg, maybe resting on a box or something. Kind of awkward, but not amputated via Photoshop, I think.
You can see the top of her left knee so you can estimate where her right knee would be behind his leg.
Tdawwg

Watch out for that Expellicrurem!
Anonymous

You’ll be hearing from her lawyer soon. Slanderous, libelous…such damaging insinuations. Really, imploring us to just look at that picture. Have you people no shame?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  She actually pitched a fit when the PR people gave her a Barbie doll body in one of the HP promo posters. She made them change it back to look like her.
Anonymous

You guys are trying too hard to be clever. The position of the left knee makes it clear that the right knee is behind the guy’s legs.

I used Emma’s left leg to show where the right knee would be. Here:

http://images.4chan.org/b/src/1262996156767.jpg

Not shopped.
Anonymous

The amputee fetishists just found their new goddess.

Of course, she may have been hiding a stump and a peg leg under that Hogwarts robe all along. Who knew?

And it is NOT a Photoshop disaster! Its magic. WooooOOOooooo…..
Anonymous

Came for CHAV reference, leaving satisfied.
Anonymous

I think we have a case of too many people with marginal Photoshop skills trying–with words–to prove how skilled they are. Which they aren’t.

I see nothing wrong with the photo. My own shorts have, on occasion, ridden up one leg higher than the other. Add the right (or wrong) photography angle and perspective and you can get what we see in the photo.

I am a magician. I can make my thumbs seemingly vanish. The right angle on purpose…or in the case of this photo…accidental and a thumb vanishes.

She has little stick-like legs and he has pants on. That leg could well simply be behind his.

I’m not saying for sure that that’s what’s going on in the photo. It could very well be bad Photoshopping. I just don’t think you all are the experts you would like the rest of us to think you are.
- blueelm
  
  I think it’s a matter of photoshop allowing too many crap photos through. Even if that is not a photoSHOP disaster it’s still a damned awkward photo.
  
  Given how high up her arm is I could see an argument that her body is leaning that way, which makes the weird looking hip.
  
  But it still makes for a messed up picture.
Anonymous

It could work… but either way, its a bad shot that sort of makes her have an alien leg. If I could see her entirely, i would imagine she had a little arm at the end of that thigh stub.
anansi133

You don’t need to invoke photoshop for this one, just look at the line of her jacket, going into the line of his hand. You expect her leg to follow the same line, but it doesn’t, it goes behind his hand and leg, and bends down right where the knee would be.

poor choice of image from the contact sheet, to be sure, but hardly a photoshop disaster.
pentomino

In slightly-related shopped-Watson news, I remember seeing a picture of Emma Watson next to Richard Dawkins that looked eerily similar. Does anyone have that picture, and can anyone vouch for the authenticity of either component?
- OoOoOo
  
  @pentomino
  
  http://totallylookslike.com/2008/10/14/dr-richard-dawkins-totally-looks-like-emma-watson/
thequickbrownfox

Burberry is a disaster already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav
Xopher

OK, three things.

1. Xeni, you left the word ‘awesome’ out of the title. Should be “Look at this awesome photo of Emma Watson in the Burberry Spring 2010 campaign.”

2. Alex is prettier than Emma.

3. Isn’t that an awfully suggestive pose to do with your own brother? Especially with him doing the hook-thumb-in-pocket-point-fingers-at-junk thing.
Anonymous

Whatever it is, I hope you feel as queasy looking at it as I do. Good grief. What horrible clothes.
Xopher

Oops, his thumb is hooked in his waistband…which is even more suggestive. I think the people who posed these kids should be ashamed. It’s a cheesey photograph at any rate.
Lester

Wow, she can really act. I’ve always thought she had two whole legs.
watman

“…which has been described by some…” Heh
frankieboy

So now Xeni is going after little Emma? Woman don’t you ever learn?!! One would have thought Demi’s lawyer-letter would have schooled ya’, but I can see you are unrepentant. Woe is the wages of your utter disregard for the feelings and careers of these poor girls! You have been warned!! NOT FOR PUBLIC DISSEMINATION, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! (Crashing Thunder sound, cut to black)
heydemann3

Not to mention that the part of her hip seems to have a socket that revolves in a most unusual way. And it doesn’t matter if I can photoshop my way out of a wet paper bag-if the picture presented looks like crap, then someone somewhere did a really really bad job.
teapot

Commentary (or laughter) on the clothes aside, I think this *could* be legit, but it’s around a 1:200 probability of you ask me.

It seems her right leg was positioned to rest on something slightly higher than her left leg which seems like an odd idea for a pose – suggesting this is shopped.

The shadows are just awful. Since when does a shadow fall up and right when a shot is primarily lit from the top right of frame (look above her head)? Disapperaing leg and disregard for the laws of physics.

specially with him doing the hook-thumb-in-pocket-point-fingers-at-junk thing.

Xopher – Thanks for lulz and a wonderfully precise definition of mainstream fashion photography in the noughties.
PJG

I think her head has been enlarged a bit too. It looks wrong. Plus way too much blur on the skin. His left arm, her left thigh and arm all look fake.
Anonymous

her leg is definitely bent right behind his, other than that I have no idea what’s wrong with this.
desprez

Quite frankly, the whole site seems to be scatted with awkward photos.
Anonymous

Dear Hank @ #5

What would chairs look like if our knees bend the other way?
jimh

Actually, it’s kind of troubling to me that her, uh… “package” is bigger than her brother’s.
EH

photoshop disasters are turning into a new avenue for promotion and exposure. i see what you did there, burberry!
- dejawooblog
  
  By Jove, I think he’s got it!
  
  I noticed the neck personally before I noticed the leg. Now that I realize she’s a stick-necked one-legged girl with no acting skills, well, saying something would be just downright mean.
Jonathan Badger

Has anyone seen Emma in person? Maybe she really has only one leg and she has been supplied a second in her movie appearances through CGI…
Anonymous

I believe handicapped people can be models also!!! Give them a chance.
Anonymous

What’s the problem?

Even and consistent skin tones – Check

No skin blemishes and white teeth and eyes – Check

Balanced neutral tones – Check

Product separation and color is good – Check

All limbs and appendages accounted for – (client feedback needed)
lolbrandon

Also, they aren’t smiling.
chgoliz

Looking through the entire slideshow, I’m squicked out at how dangerously thin she is, as well as how sluttishly she is being posed. Why would I want my daughters to look like that? My take-away from this advertising is that Burberry is making stupid corporate decisions. Most college-aged kids can’t afford to buy their clothing directly: Burberry shouldn’t be pissing off the kids’ parents if they want to make sales.
- Anonymous
  
  funny. i was thinking they were rather tame.
Xenu

She’s auditioning for Gary Sinise’s roll in a remake of Forest Gump.
- Anonymous
  
  hahahahahah
  
  Just like worn out pants became popular this is just the opposite the pants have an extra leg holder for others to use when their pants are lacking protection
Hirsty

Ouch!
senorglory

Burberry Pirate?
Anonymous

here is a video from the photo shoot. sorry, this picture isn’t photoshopped!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv0fun2eJOk&feature=player_embedded
Anonymous

I agree with anyone saying this is done on purpose to get attention. Some of these photoshop disasters are just way too obvious to be mistakes.
mesrop

IT’S NOT OUR FAULT! I do professional retouching and on more then one occasion there has been a mindless art director or client sitting there telling us they want some insane thing done. If we say it will look strange, they say they still want to “see” it. So we do it anyway, pointing out the complete fuck up of a job it is (by saying it looks odd). They go with it because they are “art directors” and we just want to get paid for the job. We hope that some website doesn’t pick up how much of a fuck up it is and kill that connection for us because When the art director gets questioned the blame gets shifted to the “bad retoucher.”
Tzctlp

By checking with the finest of combs every image out there, nobody will care anymore when real outrageous modifications to pictures (like Demi Moore’s) are brought to attention.

This picture is perfectly achievable without extreme modification, people whining about it are taking things to extremes that are not helpful.
modrob

How do we know this isn’t a ploy by some marketing genius who figures BB will jump on anything that resembles a photoshop fail? Instant exposure.
kettledog

What about her neck? Does that look right?
Eric Ragle

The fit of those shorts make it look really awkward. I just think it’s a bad photo.

The most disturbing part if the fact that she’s hanging on her brother, who happens to be casually hanging his thumb in the waist of his pants. The rest of the photos are also equally as disturbing.
EscapingTheTrunk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUAPDvo2UBM
shadowfirebird

I’m no expert, but you can certainly get some really awful results akin to this just by choosing a poor camera angle, or having the models pose badly.

Not that it makes any difference: either way, she looks like an amputee with a dislocated shoulder.
Anonymous

AGAIN?! what is wrong with these people in the fashion/ad/publishing biznis? this obsession with unhealthy skinny models has to stop! i speak for most if not all men in general when i say that WE DO NOT find unhealthily skinny starving rail thin models attractive at all! whats worse is this out of touch comunity of “fashionistas” that self impose these oppressive unrealistic & unhealthy draconian rules & expectations on women young and old regarding feminine beauty that men never ask for. yes i know us men crave thin waists & ample bossoms with nicely matched buns, but seriously rail thin legs? rail thin necks? rail thin arms? this has to stop!

US MEN HAVE TO MAKE A FUSS ABOUT THIS AND MAKE OUR STAND KNOWN, WE DONT WANT “STARVED/HEROIN JUNKY LOOK-ALIKE FASHION MODELS”!!!!!!

unfortunately i get the feeling wimmens aint listening :( instead they chose unhealthy steady diets of fashion magazines instead of advice from healthy fitness magazines…
2k

Course I need the bloody bag. Keep me leg in it!
Aurini

Man, that is some hot amputee-lesbian porn! Where’s the rest of the set?
Zergonapal

I am willing to give the photographer the benefit of the doubt, but if I was him I would have chosen an other picture that didn’t make Emma Watson look like an amputee.
takeshi

The shadows at crotch level are more than sufficient to believe this image was ‘shopped. Hate to break it to all the photojournalists weighing in, but your opinion means squat. Just examine the photo in Photoshop, zoom in really close, and you’ll notice minor retouches to (and major discrepancies in) the shadows throughout the image, particularly where there should be a leg.

Or else the rest of her leg is actually INSIDE of her brother’s leg, inseminating his lower brain with its daily briefing of creepy.
Tavie

I think Consumerist pointed out that the most disturbing aspect of this photo is that the boy is actually Emma’s brother.
Anonymous

It’s the fashion photo Escher would have taken. The more you start looking at those lines on her shorts, the more you start to go insane.
Anonymous

i hope it’s not real guys…
slgalt

I think you are misreading the image, this is an ad for extreme giant POCKETS!
UncommonSense

I thought it was the asymmetrical decorative moldings. But sure. The leg.
trr

No big deal. She’s standing on her left leg, and her right leg is behind his left leg, maybe resting on a box or something. Kind of awkward, but not amputated via Photoshop, I think.
You can see the top of her left knee so you can estimate where her right knee would be behind his leg.
johnhazard

I agree with the naysayers- there’s nothing wrong with the photo. As an illustrator who has used photos as models for drawings of the human body I can assure you that viewing a 3D figure in a 2D medium can produce extremely distorted looking body parts. I think the leg of her shorts has ridden up and her knee is bent, and the angle of her leg & perspective have conspired to make her leg seem to incongruously disappear behind her brother’s leg. Sorry boingboing, no shenanigans here.
theawesomerobot

The leg thing is possible, though unlikely – but the neck thing seems kind of ridiculous.
frogworth

I’m still trying to work out what this thread has to do with bananas.
Anonymous

Her neck is freaking me out even more, plus they both look like they’re on opiates.
thebelgianpanda

If I were in advertising I would seriously consider deliberately photographing models with optical tricks to make them look like bad photoshops–these latest ‘disasters’ have probably been seen and discussed waaay more than a normal advertisement.
Anonymous

Overall…my first impression viewing this photo was a feeling imbalance. It doesn’t offer flow nor consistency. A missing 1/2 leg, the way the guy is standing, facial expressions…it just lacked a naturalness to this photograph and a sense overall wellbeing!
Spintherism

Look at this confirmation bias. Just look at it.
bjacques

You’re talking about whoever went nuts with the Clone stamp and plaid pattern, right? How could the photo editor not have caught that?
Anonymous

I think she looks beautiful, legs or no legs.
Anonymous

I rly think this is a photoSHOP mishap. I mean, wat, r her legs toothpicks???!!!! She was definitely cut out.
Anonymous

WHO’S THAT GUY WITH HER IN THAT PICTURE? WHATS HIS NAME !?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s her brother.
lava

she’s not really holding on to that burberry bag, so I’m just going to assume its glued to his chest. okthxbi
Antinous / Moderator

Doesn’t the background look just a teeny bit out of scale and out of perspective? They amputated her leg when they trimmed the figures and pasted them onto the background. Happens all the time. A little essence of dittany and she’ll look brand new.
- jimh
  
  That was my thought- the models were originally posed on a white sweep, and the wall was added later with less than desirable results. Very poorly executed.
  
  As for her leg, it might actually be hidden behind his. Many shots look awkward (or even impossible) without being altered. If it wasn’t a photoshop mistake, it was certainly a mistake to choose this photo…
http://www.escapingthetrunk.net EscapingTheTrunk

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m an only child, but I don’t really see what the big deal is about Ms. Watson doing this shot with her brother. It’s pretty vanilla. They’re not wearing revealing clothes, they’re not facing each other, they’re not touching at any point but across the shoulder. Maybe if it was her thumb in his waistband, there would be something to talk about.

Then again, this photo caused some concern: http://www.drunkpancake.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/miley-cyrus-billy-ray-cyrus-vanity-fair.jpg

And it’s only slightly more cuddly.
- Xopher
  
  What bothers me about it is that they’re both doing sexy, and touching in what looks to me like a couple-ish way. YMMV.
Anonymous

What do I think? I think there’s an opening in the graphics department!
turbokoala

“Just look at it.”

At least she’s not a banana…
abstract_reg

Most importantly, it doesn’t make me want to by clothes.
Sam

Looks like the agency took down the original… at least I couldn’t find it.
Anonymous

White pants after labor day!? Fashion Disaster.
Anonymous

what about her neck! Yikes… not to mention the poor feathering…
unklstuart

Has Emma really decided to become that thin? If her face and neck are not P-shopped, she needs an emergency cheeseburger.
Anonymous

What about her arm? Doesn’t it look a little odd, too?
octopod

hmm. bozarking + sister.
adamrice

I think the world needs more amputee models. Go Emma!
Hawley

thats one hell of a leg to stand on
Anonymous

I don’t understand the fascination with bad fashion ads.
Anonymous

guys!! its clearly behind the slightly baggy jeans. The video is shot slightly to the left of the photo. see,s crazy that we are discussing if she has a leg or not. Why would Mario Testino’s retouchers (one of the worlds greatest photographers) try to retouch out a leg?
Anonymous

Its a stretch but teeeechhniicalllly its possible her whole lower leg is small enough to be covered by that guys leg. I won’t comment on the horrible shadow job
- Deidzoeb
  
  “I won’t comment on the horrible shadow job” is a comment that you see it as horrible.
  - Anonymous
    
    “‘I won’t comment on the horrible shadow job’ is a comment that you see it as horrible.” is a comment that you see the comment as a comment that Anonymous #2 sees it as horrible.
Anonymous

Sans Leg…nice
MadRat

This picture is going to be found framed and hanging on the walls of acrotomophiles all over the world.
Anonymous

ooop s here i meant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv0fun2eJOk
Anonymous

Legless Appendo!
Hank

She’s a Space Alien amputee! Run!

Actually, having another knee articulated in the opposite orientation might come in handy, but I don’t think I’m willing to have my let amputated in order to get one.
Anonymous

OMG WHATS WRONG WITH HER LEG???
Anonymous

It’s not a disaster. Harry’s invisibility cloak is simply hiding the other leg.
rawdiant

If that’s Emma Watson, it’s a Photoshop disaster. but, if it’s Hermione Granger, who’s to say?
fancyfeast

Actually if you look at the videos, there’s a clip of that shot, and her leg could definitely be hidden behind his.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34273509@N00/4254654961/
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It looks like they just trimmed slightly too much. You can see a tiny bit of her leg there.
blueelm

Haha! That is a disaster photograph to begin with, but really that hip/leg thing? What were they hoping for?

How to photographs like this not end up scrapped anyway?
MrJM

Sorcery!
scifijazznik

There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Assuming she’s had her right leg amputated just above the knee, of course.
- Anonymous
  
  I think you mean just below the knee, not above the knee
Anonymous

It really just looks like more of a positioning disaster.