From the time that the first photograph was taken in 1827 (by Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce), the way that people saw the world was changed forever.
Before the first photograph, all you could rely on were the artist’s drawings and paintings.
Even if artists back then were painting the actual scenes, there would always be some detail that they would miss or deem unimportant. And since all the details were being filtered through the mind of the artist, then what we are actually seeing in a painting is an artist’s interpretation of a scene that could carry with it its own biases and inaccuracies.
But with the advent of photography, people got to view scenes exactly as they were. This only got better as technology progressed because not only were cameras becoming less bulky, you could take more pictures reliably until we’ve reached the point that some smartphones of today even outperform digital cameras that came out as recently as a decade ago!
Yet even during the early days of photography, it became common to hold staged scenes that aimed to convince people that they were seeing something that wasn’t even really real, to begin with. This is okay for advertisements and promotions but a lot of photo hoaxes have come out because of this (Big Foot, UFOs, etc.) this has become even more of a concern as photo editing has become more sophisticated.
But one photographer in Indonesia claims that he happened upon a dragon lizard that absolutely looked like it was just sitting back and playing some strings on its “leaf guitar.” Aditya Permana, a professional photographer who is based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, took this shot of a lifetime.
He said that he “did not directly photograph the lizard at first until the lizards feel calm and comfortable around me. I noticed it looked like it was playing the guitar – and it didn’t move at all.” He added that he didn’t do anything to manipulate the lizard.
Whatever the case may be, it’s an incredible shot and one that should have us thinking about sitting back and relaxing once in a while as well, no matter if the shot was staged or not. After all, what is life if you’re not taking the time to enjoy it? If other creatures on the planet can enjoy life, then you deserve to enjoy it as much as they do!
Replaced!