Hawaii Photo Fakeout: The magical art of the teensy pool crop

The Aqua Aloha Hotel Pool

Take a gander at the images above; the pictures on the left were pulled from each hotel's website, the ones on the right were snapped by Oyster reporters. Yes, these hotels (The Equus on Oahu and the Aqua Aloha Surf on Oahu) appear to have slyly attempted the ol' crop trick -- which we first saw back in Miami with our surfing Mr. Model Man -- in which a hotel's pool photos are presented in an artfully-trimmed way so as to (perhaps) suggest that there is much, much more to the pool. But usually there isn't.


If you suspect a hotel pool might be small because the photos on the website only show a teeny sliver of blue water, you're probably correct.


Update: Since we published this Fakeout, the hotel has removed the misleading photo from its website.