How to Spot a Misleading Crowd Photo

As businesses reopen and people take to the beaches and parks, you’ve probably seen news photos or video that appear to show people packed into dense crowds, blithely ignoring social distancing guidelines. But these photos can be misleading, and it’s thanks to a camera trick.

A fairly common technique photographers favor when shooting crowds is to use a zoom or telephoto lens. This compresses the foreground and background of a picture, making everybody look like they are closer together. For example, in an article on crowd photos Outdoor Photography Guide...