Remember last month when we published this mysteriously dated looking photo, purportedly of an Apple ad circa 1990 for a Mac Classic? Well, those of you who doubted its authenticity can stand a little taller tonight, as the photographer/genius behind the photo has revealed himself, and it turns out the photo is circa July 2007 (hey, we were only 17 years off – which is probably longer than that model has been alive…)

Photographer Tim Melideo came up with the idea for the photo while shooting model Wendy McColm at his apartment. “She came over and saw the Mac I had and wanted to incorporate it [into a shoot]. So then I decided to put all those floppies on the wall as a background and shoot her in the dress. Then, when I saw the pics, I thought it would make a great Mac ad, so I made the colors all brown and green so it looks kind of like a scan from an old magazine, and popped the Apple logo in there. I submitted it to Digg and stuff as a real Mac ad, to see peoples reactions. So when I saw it on your site, and saw people debating over it, I thought I did my job well.”

So, there you have it folks. The pic is indeed a fake, but don’t worry. Tim claims he’s a true Mac head, and is working on something special for us. “I am a Mac fan for sure, writing this from my MacBook Pro, while watching EyeTV on my Mac mini, and in the distance is my girlfriend’s iMac, lol. And of course I have that classic Mac, and an old G4 tower. I was actually going to take some pics with my girlfriend and submit them to your Mac Chick of the Month thing, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Sweet.

Judging from Tim’s work (check it out here, or on Flickr) he’s going to do a bang up job if WHEN he gets around to those shots. We can’t wait! (oh, and you can see more of Wendy here, and on YouTube.)