By Anneta Konstantinides From Business Insider

• Instagram influencer Tupi Saravia went viral after social-mediausers realized that she had the same cloud formation in many of her travel photos.
• Saravia admitted to Insider that she sometimes edits the sky in her photos with the camera app Quickshot when it looks “burned or overexposed.”
• The travel influencer said she has always been open about editing with her 292,000 followers and was the first to “joke about the clouds following me around the world.”
• While Saravia is far from the only influencer to edit her photos, travel blogger Stephanie Van Hoeijen told Insider that she believes editing is misleading and contributes to “the culture of fakeness.”

A popular Instagram influencer has admitted that she edited her photos to add clouds in the background of her travel shots after comparisons of the pictures caused a stir on social media.

Tupi Saravia went viral this week when Matt Navarra, who is a social-media industry commentator according to his Twitter account, posted a side-by-side comparison of four of the influencer’s Instagram pictures. Two of the photos were tagged in Maya Beach and Koh Rok in Thailand. Another image shows Saravia driving a boat in Italy’s Porto Santa Margherita. The fourth image, which doesn’t have a location tag, showed her walking through green fields.

Four very different locations, with four completely identical sets of clouds.

Other social-media users began sharing the comparison and Saravia, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, soon found herself making headlines around the world.

Tupi Saravia told Insider that the identical clouds in her photos, achieved by an editing app, are no secret to her 292,000 followers

“I can’t believe how far this went,” she said in an email, adding the laughing crying emoji. “Actually, I’m the first one to tell the joke about the clouds that are following me around the world.”

Saravia said that she has always been open with her followers about the fact that she uses Quickshot, a photo-editing and camera app. The app includes the “Sky” feature, which allows users to “replace the sky in your photos with a new sky: blue skies, clouds, sunsets — even add northern lights to your pics,” according to the app description.

Saravia told Insider that she only uses the app when the sky in her photo is “burned or overexposed.”

“That’s it,” she added. “I’ve always been open to my followers about this kind of app!”

Saravia has since addressed the controversy on her own Instagram as well, commenting on one of her photos on Wednesday to defend herself.

“There is a highlighted story on my feed where you can see how I edit my followers pics changing the sky,” she wrote. “If you need some, I can do a giveaway.”

Travel blogger Stephanie Van Hoeijenbelieves that editing the sky in a photo crosses the line

Van Hoeijen, who runs the Budget Bucket List blog and Instagram, was among those who shared the comparison of Saravia’s photos on social media.

“I was intrigued,” she told Insider of the viral comparison. “Why would you go out and travel to see the world, to subsequently edit what you see and recreate a false reality for fellow travelers? Traveling is all about seeing the world, the real world.”

“I just don’t appreciate the culture of fakeness,” she added. “I wonder why the world isn’t enough to show. Traveling is not all about glamour and beauty, cocktails at infinity pools and coconut sunsets…very often it’s quite the opposite. And that’s okay.”

With the exception of adjusting light and color to benefit the resolution of a picture, Van Hoeijen doesn’t believe it’s ever OK for a travel blogger or Instagram influencer to edit their photos.

“To add entire new skies and/or even landscapes, that’s alright as long as you list it under #fantasy and not #travel,” she said. “Don’t send people to fake places.”

Van Hoeijen, who has been traveling full-time for the last five years, said she always photographs destinations as they are.

“We all know what rain looks like, right?” she said. “Why pretend it’s not there?”

Van Hoeijen said it’s actually her photos that show the reality of traveling that have drawn the most readers to her blog.

“That’s real life,” she said. “Sometimes it’s an exhilarating blast, sometimes stuff goes southwards. Straight-in-your-face honesty and cutting the bulls— is the new black.”

Saravia is far from the only influencer to edit the scenery in her photos on Instagram

In July, social-media users revealed that the popular image of a crystal-clear lake at the Pura Lempuyang Luhur complex in Bali was actually an illusion.

The photo op is created by a photographer who sits under an umbrella and holds a mirror underneath an iPhone to create the reflection.

It was a revelation that shocked many tourists who had seen the popular image on the Instagram pages of numerous travel bloggers under the hashtag #GatesOfHeaven.

And in 2018 a number of Instagram influencers admitted toPhotoshopping birds into their photos, claiming it was a valid artistic decision.

“It’s a creative take on the composition,” travel blogger Sean Shanahan told Insider in 2018. “It simply creates more visual interest in the photo.”

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