Sourcing photos: Mystery women edition

I’ve had pretty good luck tracking down the origins of oddball photos used in online ads. But on some I’ve come up short, usually on pictures of women used with online dating services.
Often I can find larger, uncropped or unmodified versions of the same images, but I’m no closer to determining who the women are or where the photos originated.
Here are four examples from Facebook ads below.

The top ad features a young woman in a bikini by a pool. The ad text, which typically has nothing to do with the photo, reads, “Wealthy women looking for some fun.”
I found a larger version of the photo (shown up top), but couldn’t locate any information on the picture. It looks like a bikini competition, given all the onlookers. And the woman looks familiar, like a young Olivia d’Abo.
The larger photos are stamped Silvercash.com, which is an adult online marketing firm doing business with a lot of porn sites. That’s interesting because the same photo was used to advertise a Christian dating service, according to blogger G.M. Frampton.

The next ad features a smiling woman on a couch. The ad says, “Boyfriend Wanted. Browse pics of single women near you with this Facebook app.”
By “near you,” they must mean the Philippines. Because I found the same photo in a set of attractive Filipina women on a website called Perfect Pinay. (Pinay is a colloquial term for Filipina, according to Wikipedia.)
The website’s editor collects photos from across the Internet, according to their Facebook page. So who knows where that particular photo was sourced?

The following ad includes a photo of a woman with disproportionately large hips and thighs. The ad copy reads, “From Russia with love.”
There are two big problems with this small ad.
First off, the woman is Asian, most likely Japanese.
Second, the picture was Photoshopped to make her hips and thighs much larger. That body shape appeals to audiences of websites like Pear Lover.
The original photo is above and the altered version is below.

And finally, the ad “Easy dating on Facebook” includes a shot of a woman lying on a bed or sofa.
I found a larger photo of the woman, but no further information. You can tell she’s trying on ballet shoes, if that helps though.

Photo origins: Stock image edition

With some online ads it’s hard to tell whether a photo being used is real or staged.
In these examples, the photos used are stock images, with models posing for pictures.
Let’s start with some ads I saw on the Chicago Sun-Times website.

First, there’s an ad titled “Great Falls arrest records” with a presumed mug shot of a woman who looks like Katy Perry, Zooey Deschanel or Krysten Ritter.
I still don’t know who the woman is, but it’s not a real police mug shot. It’s a photo illustration from a stock photography company. It was taken by Rob Byron in December 2012 and is available through AP Images.
In addition to the “arrest records” ad, the photo has been used to illustrate articles on arrest procedure (WiseGeek), bail bonds (Family Bail Blog) and mug-shot websites (GigaOm).

Another online ad features a what-the-heck photo showing a bunch of people laying their hands on a girl’s head. It has a strange, new-age religious vibe.
The ad text says “If you don’t speak Spanish, you should see this video to learn this one sneaky linguistic trick.”
What does the photo have to do with learning a language?
Nothing. It’s a stock photo available from Shutterstock, Dreamstime and presumably other image services. The description says the photo shows a “Human robot science fiction concept.”
Speaking of science fiction, another ad titled “Probiotics – Warning” uses a photo that looks like an otherworldly creature.

Probiotics are microorganisms that provide health benefits when consumed, such as the good bacteria in yogurt. However, the photo used with this ad is actually a cat flea under an electron microscope. (See articles by The Telegraph and Top Design Mag.)

I doubt that a cat flea has anything to do with probiotics.

The photo with this last ad is pretty dramatic. It shows a beautiful woman pointing a handgun in the direction of the camera.
The ad copy reads, “The Coming Collapse: The real reason why Homeland Security recently purchased 1.7 billion rounds of ammunition.” It’s an ad for a website called Patriot Survival Plan.
The photo is dramatic because it’s from a 2010 movie called “Bitch Slap.” The lovely actress is America Olivo. Unfortunately the movie wasn’t so hot, with only 31% positive reviews, according to Rotten Tomatoes.
More people have seen this still photo from the movie than the actual film itself.

Identifying mystery photos in online ads

A lot of small online ads use attention-grabbing photos to get you to click on them. Sometimes they’re of attractive women, usually with big breasts. Other times they show something odd or captivating.
Earlier this year, I tracked down the source of some photos used in Facebook ads and elsewhere. (See “Sourcing photos: Sexy women edition” and “Facebook experience cheapened by trashy ads.”)
It was a fun process, so I’ll continue the series today with a selection of ads from Forbes.com.

One ad titled “New Rule in Great Falls, Va.” showed a police officer leaning against his squad car with a woman standing in the foreground.

But the photo has nothing to do with Great Falls, Va., the area where I live. The text was generated automatically using my computer’s location.
The photo was taken by Orlando Sentinel photographer Hilda M. Perez in Daytona Beach, Fla. It was used with a July 27, 2006, article titled “Prostitution crackdown.”
Unlike Daytona Beach, Fla., Great Falls, Va., doesn’t have a problem with street hookers.

Another ad says “Great Falls Arrest Records Now Online.” It features a photo, presumably a mug shot, of an attractive mixed race woman.
The picture turns out to be a mug shot of a 19-year-old woman named Gabrielle arrested on a drug offense. Her photo was included in an online slideshow on GuySpeed titled “Bad Girls With Smoking Hot Mug Shots.”
The article doesn’t say where Gabrielle was arrested, but I doubt it was Great Falls.

Lastly, there’s a photo of U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama giving the stink eye to Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It was used for a political ad titled “CAUGHT: The End of Obama.”
The unflattering photo of Ms. Obama was taken in France on June 6, 2009, by David Silpa for UPI, according to America Times.

Miley Cyrus has created a cottage industry for porn parodies

As 21-year-old pop music star Miley Cyrus explores her sexuality and pushes the boundaries of proprietary, she has provided a lot of material for porn studios to play with in X-rated parodies.
From her provocative clothing and racy music videos to her on-stage masturbation and kinky staging, Cyrus is a gold mine to the porn industry. She kicked the gossip into high gear with her performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards where she twerked, rubbed her crotch with a foam finger and dry humped singer Robin Thicke on stage.
And she’s amped up her naughty behavior recently with her Bangerz world tour. For instance, she tried to French kiss Katy Perry and simulated oral sex on a Bill Clinton impersonator. Like I said, a gold mine.
To date, Cyrus has been parodied in at least four porn movies.
Alexis Grace starred as Miley in “Hustler’s Untrue Hollywood Stories - Miley Cyrus’ 18th Birthday” (2010). That movie also featured depictions of Billy Ray Cyrus, Selena Gomez and the Jonas Brothers.
Brynn Tyler portrayed the singer in the 2011 Porn.com movie “Miley XXX,” also called “Miley XXX Can’t Be Tamed” and “Miley Cyrus Twerking It.”
But neither Grace nor Tyler looked much like Cyrus.
Enter adult film actress Miley May, aka Miley Mae, who is the spitting image of the pop star. She has already portrayed Cyrus in two porn parody videos, “Wrecking Balls” (2013) and “Miley’s Sex Tape” (2014). Plus she’s at work on another.
And I’m sure Cyrus will provide lots of material for years to come.

Photos: Porn star Miley May as Miley Cyrus in the X-rated parody “Miley’s Sex Tape” from Digital Playground.

Snow White art with a humorist twist

I recently posted examples of sexy Snow White art and cosplay. Here I’d like to show some examples of artists putting a humorist twist on the public domain character.
For instance, artists have had fun with the logo on Apple laptop computers by adding decals showing Snow White holding the bitten apple. (See photo above.) Some versions are clearly Walt Disney’s depiction of Snow White. Others make Snow White a hipster with glasses, put her in a bikini or make her a zombie.
Some unknown artist created this picture of Snow White snorting some white stuff.

CartoonGirls on DeviantArt posted this version of Snow White as a dominatrix.

Snow White is known to have a connection with nature and animals. Artist Marcelo Trom., aka Celaoxxx, depicts her au naturel, with animals covering her modesty in this humorous illustration.

Instead of ingesting a poison apple, some artists show Snow White drinking presumably alcoholic apple juice.
Artist Matt Johnson has Snow White hitting the sauce at The Bad Apple English Pub. (Check out the art on his website and Etsy page.)

Artist Lana Bijuk hit a similar theme with her illustration “High on Apples.”

This next illustration could have gone in my sexy Snow White art compilation, but it struck me more as humorous.
It’s an illustration of Snow White getting goosed by a swan. Artist Joe Pekar did it as a cover for the comic book “Grimm Fairy Tales,” No. 36.

Speaking of sexy and funny, check out this mash-up art of Snow White and Pinocchio. Snow is thumbs up for that lying Pinocchio’s growing nose. It’s the work of Eddie Holly.

Italian artist Michele Moricci depicted Snow White acting like slutty pop singer Miley Cyrus with her foam No. 1 finger. It was part of a series for Cosmopolitan showing Disney princesses dressing and behaving like Cyrus. (Moricci got coverage for her work in the Huffington Post and the Daily Mail.)

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian dressed up as Snow White a few years back and an artist superimposed a PG-13 photo of her in the G-rated Disney cartoon. The resulting image was posted on Starcasm.net.

Another artist Photoshopped Marilyn Monroe’s head onto the body of a woman dressed as Snow White. The result is a fascinating “what if?” movie casting idea. The artwork was done by Noor Amierah bt Ghazali of Malaysia.

I love this next illustration by Otto Schmidt of Moscow. It shows a playful Snow White replacing the evil queen’s magic mirror. (Check out his Facebook page and website.)

And finally, here’s a funny illustration called “Whitey” by Russian artist Lora Zombie. It shows a young Snow White or girl playing dress up who has enslaved a bunch of forest animals. (See more of her art on her website.)

Magazine sales continue to slide; Format’s future in doubt

I love magazines, but the industry has been in decline for years, largely because of the rise of the Internet.
Magazines seem destined to go from a mass market to a niche media in the years to come.
Last month, the Alliance for Audited Media released its U.S. consumer magazine circulation data for the second half of 2013. Overall circulation declined 1.7% from a year earlier, with newsstand sales dropping 11%. Celebrity weeklies and fashion magazines were the biggest decliners, Adweek and the Wall Street Journal reported.
Digital editions rose sharply, up nearly 37%, but make up just 3.5% of total magazine circulation.
Time Warner has delayed the initial public offering and spinoff of its Time Inc. division because of the decline in its magazine business, the New York Post reported.
The prospects for print magazines are “generally gloomy,” Peter Osnos wrote in the Atlantic in December for an article titled “Can Print Magazines Save Themselves?”
But “Mr. Magazine” Samir Husni is upbeat about the prospects for the industry.
In December, Husni wrote that new magazine launches were down only slightly in 2013, but their survival rate was way up.
Last month, Husni spotlighted 14 magazines launched since the dot-com era peaked in 2000. He said they showed the resilience of paper magazines.
Also in February, Husni wrote that magazine publishers are realizing that they can’t go all-digital. Magazines without print are “like Kojak without his sucker,” he said.

Photo: Cover of new magazine Editorialist featuring model Nina Agdal. 

The 15 most buzzed-about magazine covers of 2013

2013 featured lots of buzzworthy magazine covers. What follows are 15 that caught my eye for various reasons.
Sports Illustrated’s 2013 Swimsuit Issue was notable for a couple of reasons. It featured model Kate Upton on the cover for the second straight year and was shot in Antarctica. Some retailers thought the cleavage-exposing cover was a little too racy and needed to be covered up, as Journoterrorist noted.
That cover is certainly not as racy as that for Playboy’s June 2013 Playmate of the Year issue. It featured Raquel Pomplun showing side boob and butt crack in an innocent, retro-style setting. (See articles by E Online and Fox News.)

In November, Esquire magazine picked actress Scarlett Johansson as its Sexiest Woman Alive. (See article by ABC News.)

That same month, People magazine picked rocker Adam Levine as its Sexiest Man Alive. (See articles by People and Celebrity Bug.)

Actress Alyssa Milano set tongues wagging with her cover shoot for the July-August 2013 issue of Maxim. The 40-year-old beauty went braless and wore an open flannel shirt covering her ta-tas. (See articles by UPI, the Huffington Post and Us Weekly.)

And speaking of age and beauty, actor Brad Pitt was given a commemorative cover of AARP magazine when he turned 50 in December.

The treatment of homosexuals in the U.S. continues to be a hot-button issue. Time magazine featured gay couples kissing for its April 2013 cover story “Gay Marriage Already Won.” (See articles on Mashable and Entertainment Weekly.)

And in July, the New Yorker portrayed Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie as a gay couple on its cover. (See Laughing Squid article.)

Time magazine stoked controversy with its Nov. 18, 2013, issue on N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. The photo and headline “The Elephant in the Room” appeared to make fun of the Republican governor’s weight.
The cover generated stories by the Huffington Post, E Online and Jon Stewart.

In May, Time struck a chord with its cover on self-absorbed young people today. Time called this group “the Me-Me-Me Generation.” The Huffington Post suggested calling the age group the “Selfie Nation.”

The Boston Marathon bombing was the subject of buzzworthy covers by Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.
Sports Illustrated used a photo of police and a fallen runner taken moments after the blast.

Rolling Stone caught flak for its cover story on surviving bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. His presence in a space usually reserved for rock stars and celebrities seemed to glamorize a domestic terrorist. (See articles by EW, the Wire and the Christian Science Monitor.)

The current pope and his predecessor were featured on many magazine covers last year. Two stood out.
The March 11, 2013, issue of the New Yorker used an illustration of retired Pope Benedict XVI on the beach reading a newspaper. But to some it looked like he was masturbating. (See article on Romenesko.)

In December, his successor, Pope Francis, was named Time’s Person of the Year. The pick was controversial because many felt the magazine should have named NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the honor. (See articles by Yahoo and the Huffington Post.)

And finally, I loved this cover of Bloomberg Businessweek from Dec. 9 that showed a BlackBerry phone with other ancient relics. It was for the article titled “The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry: An Oral History.”