Fact Check

Does a Risque Photo Show Obama Eating a Hot Dog in Front of a Statue?

You never can tell what unintended elements might end up in your pictures.

Published Sept. 30, 2019

Presidential limousines are seen outside of Rudy's Hot Dog as Presudent Barack Obama stops for lunch on June 3, 2011 in Toledo, Ohio. Obama is in Toledo, Ohio to visit Chrysler's Toledo Assembly complex and speak to workers. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Image courtesy of Getty Images
Claim:
A photograph shows Barack Obama eating a hot dog in front of a museum statue.

The internet is rife with examples of photographs in which foreground and background elements have combined in ways not intended by the photographer to create "optical illusions," some of which appear to depict rather embarrassing scenarios.

One such example of this phenomenon purportedly captured Barack Obama chowing down on a hot dog in a museum while standing in front of a statue in such a way that the flattening of visual depth in the resulting photograph created a rather salacious scenario:

Obama is rather well-known as an enthusiastic consumer of hot dogs, but he it isn't known for lacking an awareness of his surroundings while engaging in that activity — at least, not in the way pictured above.

The risqué image seen above is a composite, created by melding a picture of what appears to be a museum exhibit with an Associated Press photograph of then-U.S. Sen. Obama eating a hot dog at an Independence Day picnic in Butte, Montana, on July 4, 2008:

Sources

D'Abruzzo, Diana.   "Top Dogs: Politicians Chow Down on an American Favorite."     Politico.   3 July 2016.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.