Smithsonian.com

Sant Ocean Hall, courtesy of Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution

The Washington Post Magazine wasn’t kidding when it rated its popular photo feature “Second Glance”—a segment that juxtaposes an original photograph with an altered version and asks readers to name the differences—an “extreme” in terms of degree of difficulty. Check out the link above.

The photo was taken from a second story balcony in the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall, not the one on the left. Thinking myself an “insider,” I came into the exercise a bit cocky. Turns out I could only name a few of the details edited out of the second photograph [SPOILER!]: a spot on the bridge of the right whale’s snout, a black ring on the floor near the whale’s mouth, a glimpse of a red ladder under the whale’s tail, a shape of purple light just above the whale’s back. Can you spot the rest?