No, this is sloppy use of language, which worked the same 50 years ago. The only thing different today is the range of things that exist that we can infer that they really mean by their sloppy language. There were still ways to manipulate photos, before CGI. One might have called such a manipulated photo a ‘fake photograph’ in that day (though even that is arguably a little sloppy). But a non manipulated photo of a real physical model is not in any way a ‘fake photograph’. You could say a photograph of a fake Gigantopithecus, or of a fake scene but that’s not the same thing. Yes, we can infer what’s meant when people carelessly slap adjectives on the wrong nouns, but it is sloppy writing.

Notice how much more accurate and well written OP’s description is: “Paleo-anthro sculptor Bill Munns with his Giganto reconstruction”