This pic is the classic banana fingers - but in reverse! You know, the angler who holds aloft his trophy arms out stretched to make an average sized fish look far more impressive.
IMO, the fish looks smaller than its actual size due to an almost optical illusion - your brain sees what it expects to see. As the 'thumb' is in the field of reference, your brain sees the fish smaller than it actually is. It could well indeed be every ounce of 15lb!!!
This effect is exaggerated further as the fish is not shown full length as it sits in the fold of the net.
I had to suffer years of disappointment with photography, my 36 exposure film deposited to the chemist to be sent away to a distant lab - life stood still until the day arrived to pick up the images of leviathans slain.... only to be met repeatedly by disapointment..... my 12lb pike looking like a sardine due to the photographic skill of a kindly passing dog walker, insistent that he should include a bit of 'background'....... I wanted a portrait..... not a f***ing landscape
I am only grateful for the joys that digital photography brings! instant editing, instant quality and focus checking, as many goes as it takes to get it right - free!.... the only issue I have these days is that I have a digital SLR..... most people instinctively hold the camera at arms length expecting an image to appear in the screen...... with the advances of technology, humans have now lost the skills to use a traditional view finder
A little tip to all you budding trophy taking fisherman..... decide on a pose and settle on it! I squat down, rest my elbows on my knees for support have my arms almost parallel to the ground. It is almost an instinct to have the fish tilting back towards the body.... in the case of a lively fish, most anglers feel they can at least catch it if it flips. I tend to find if held confidently, fish are happiest held upright, so accounting for this I try and overcome my fears and tilt the fish forward slightly..... they sit quite content long enough for a few snaps!
If you use the same pose each time, it creates a proportionality to all your future snaps and they will look like the stated size as you expect to visualize them in a photograph.
Another weird thing.... come june 16th and I start catching chub again.... I often weigh fish expecting the needle to pass the 4lb mark only to be dissapointed. It takes a few weeks to get my eye back in again.
Interesting post!!!!