He managed to fool Al Jazeera, the Wall Street Journal and even Getty Images by photoshopping images. He also told his followers of visits to the Gaza Strip, Iraq and ISIS-controlled Syria but in reality he was using what turned out to be British surf blogger Max Helpworth-Povey’s face and simply placing them onto pictures of war zones. It’s unbelievable how he got away with it for so long.
The photojournalistic work of 32-year old Sao Paulo born surfer and photographer Eduardo Martins documented the harrowing realities of the war-torn middle east and touched the lives of many people abroad. He was highly commended for stepping foot in arguably some of the most dangerous places in the world for his job.
Reputable media outlets and his 120,000 followers on Instagram had no idea that Martins was simply just a con-man with a talent for Photoshop.
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Pictured above is the aforementioned British surf blogger Max Helpworth-Povey (@hepworth_max), the man who temporarily lost his identity to Martins. It was Max’s friends who noticed the images of him being posted on Martins’ (@edu_martinsp) profile.
As you could imagine, Max was totally blown away by the lunacy of the situation.
When my friend showed me the photos first of all I thought it was a joke, some a***hole (messing) with me.
But actually, my photos were stolen, it’s crazy that some random guy decided to use my image among so many options across internet.
I work very far from war zones, with surfing trips. All my pictures have always been taken in that context.
Below you can see Helpworth-Povey appear to be in the cities of Aleppo and Mogadishu in Syria and Africa, respecitivley. ‘Eduardo Martins’ simply just pasted pictures of Max in war zones and called it his work.
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In the side-by-side comparisons, you can see how the photos on the left are inverted or flipped around, whereas the original photos on the right taken by Daniel C. Britt maintain their natural form. Martins altered the images to evade search parameters wherein the original images would appear and to at least temporarily avoid copyright infringement.
‘Eduardo Martins’ had gained a strong following on Instagram not only for his seemingly amazing archives of work, but also for the inspiring personal story he told about beating cancer.
We can only hope one wouldn’t lie about such a thing, but at this point in these developments, it would be a pretty logical inference.
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You have to think that someone must’ve been in contact with this super evasive dude, and that man was veteran photographer and DOC Galeria member Fernando Costa Netto.
Netto contacted Martins to inquire about conducting an exhibition of his work. But like everyone else, Netto eventually realized the truth about Eduardo Martins’ fraudulent profile and called him out for it.
Apparently when Netto made Martins aware that the world was onto him, he immediately deleted his Instagram account and sent the following final WhatsApp message from a now deactivated number:
I’m in Australia. I made the decision to spend a year a van. I’ll cut everything, including the internet.
I want to be in peace, we’ll see each other when I get back.
A big hug, I’ll delete the zap. Stay with God. A hug.
Well Eduardo, if that is your real name, great job buddy.
You fooled the media and the general public and took credit for the work of others while simultaneously posing on Instagram as a British surfer who also had an Instagram. Pretty bold move there.
We may never know who this random alias of ‘Eduardo Martins’ the surfer/war photojournalist truly is, but let this be a lesson to all that not everything on the internet is what it appears to be.
In stark contrast to the lying con-artist Eduardo Martins, let’s commend the heroes who actually do step into warzones for their jobs. Check out footage of Kurdish sniper Haron fighting the Islamic State in Kobani.
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