Danish web site shows how photo journalists are shooting photos with long telephone lenses to compress perspective, making it look as if people – who are actually widely spaced – appear to be standing close together.

Source: Google Translate

Note – the photos in their article were created by two pro photographers to illustrate how some media outlets are faking the photos to make it appear that people are standing close together. For example, here in the U.S., many news outlets ran photos of allegedly crowded beaches in Florida or Los Angeles – yet all used the technique of long telephoto lenses to compress perspective and make it look like people were close together.

Twitter user https://twitter.com/baekdal/status/1254460167812415489 highlighted the same people and objects in the two different perspectives. Same people, different angle, different camera lens.

Sadly, fake photography is common. Another technique is to take a photo but tilt it to the left or right. The odd angle creates an appearance of action or activity when no such action was occurring. And of course, cropping – either in camera or in post editing is used often.