The Real Story Behind the Incredible Storm Photo That Just Won’t Die

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Over the weekend, something almost as cyclical as storms themselves began spreading across social media — an old, dramatic image of a green-ish cloud hovering above water. Numerous people attributed the picture to Isaac but, as quickly as the picture spread, even making a brief appearance on Britain’s Daily Mail, people began debunking it. This image seems to pop up every time there’s a big storm — but where did it come from?

Thanks to Tin Eye, a photo-search site, we can see that the picture has illustrated a great many things besides Isaac.

1. A Dream

This storm was used to illustrate a post about a guy’s desert island dream. Scroll to the end for Adriana Lima shots.

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2. Spiritual Wordplay

In 2008, Tom Cottar used the image for a blog post on spirituality and anagrams — “Did you ever realize that Britney Spears is an anagram for Presbyterian? Or that Pepsi Cola is an anagram for Episcopal?”

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3. Climate Change Denial

A post from 2010 outlined one right-winger’s belief that global warming is hokum.

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4. Latvian Weather Roundup

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5. Blackberry Device

In Chinese, no less.

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6. Scissor Sister Song

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7. Baltic Storm

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8. Moving from Wisconsin to Michigan

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9. Twitter Update

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And the original…

10. Brunei Storm

As suspected by eagle-eyed colleague John Herrman, the original photo was apparently taken by a photographer named Richard Seaman, who posted a whole bunch of photos from a trip to Brunei. Reached by email, he confirmed: “Yes, it’s my photo.”

Seaman issues stern take-down warnings for uncredited and uncompensated use of his work but sadly, it seems that the picture was just too good — and too divorced from its source — for the internet not to use over and over again.

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