Perfectly Timed Photos
About
Perfectly Timed Photos (also known as "Well-Timed Photos") refer to photographs that are taken at opportune moments to reveal a sight of spectacle (often at high speeds) or an optical illusion, such as forced perspective. While many examples of perfectly timed photos can be seen as lucky shots captured in the nick of time, photographs like the the 9/11 Tourist Guy have been digitally manipulated to appear as if they were taken at a perfectly timed moment.
Origin
According to Wikipedia[3], the first photograph to capture a flying bullet in mid-air was taken by Austrian physicist Peter Sacher in 1886. During the early days of film photography, a series of advancements in high speed photography drastically improved the likelihood of capturing well-timed photographs, including the invention of high speed film camera by German scientists in 1916, rotating mirror camera by Cearcy Miller and rapatronic shutters by MIT professor Harold “Doc” Edgerton[18] in the 1940s.
Up until the late 1990s, the production of well-timed photographs was mostly limited to professional photographers and photojournalists, but it quickly became more accessible in the 2000s with the arrival of consumer-grade digital camera, which gave a new life to the use of continuous shots and introduced the instant on-screen preview feature. It is like that perfectly timed photos rose to popularity on forums and BBS sites under various names in different parts of the Internet.
Spread
One of the earliest uses of the label “perfectly timed photo” can be found in the title of a CollegeHumor[14] post uploaded on January 5th, 2007. The image showed a telephone pole obscuring a sign for a store called “Smoke Depot” to appear as if it read “Smoke Pot.”
Sharing perfectly timed photos became a popular topic on message boards that year, with threads on Volkswagen fan forum GOLFMKV[16], motorcycle and ATV enthusiast forum Thumper Talk[8] and drum and bass enthusiast forum Break Beat.[11] Three perfectly timed photo threads were archived from 4chan's /b/ (random) board that year.[26][27][28] Several blogs also posted compilations of these photos in 2007 including Dwerf[10], Best Cool Pics[9] and Top 10 Kid.[17]
Additional compilations have appeared on the Ebaumsworld forum[13] as well as blogs including Crooked Brains[12], Bored Panda[21][22], design blog Enpundit[23], the Chive[24] and Pleated Jeans.[25] While the image database Perfectly Timed Photos[1] claims to have existed since 2008, the domain for perfectlytimedphotos.com[7] was registered on April 7th, 2009. Additional instances can be found on Tumblr with the tags "perfectly timed"[19] or "perfectly timed photos."[20]
In Sports Journalism
Due to the common use of high speed photography in sports journalism, perfectly timed photos have become closely associated with live sporting events or international tournaments.
2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics
On February 19th, 2010, BuzzFeed[34] highlighted 20 humorous photographs of figure skaters wearing odd facial expressions during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (shown below).
2011
On November 17th, 2011, the sports news blog Total Pro Sports[33] published a gallery of sports-related photographs taken at humorous or shocking moments titled "Perfectly Timed Sports Photos Edition" (shown below).
2012 London Summer Olympics
On May 11th, 2012, the Internet humor blog The Chive[32] published a compilation sports photos titled "Perfectly timed sports…for your pleasure." On May 30th, an entertainment news blog operated by television host Ryan Seacrest[31] published an article titled "Funniest Olympic Memes From the Past", featuring pictures of Olympic athletes wearing humorous facial expressions. On July 30th, the blog PetaPixel[30] published a post titled "The Hilariously Contorted Faces of Divers in Mid-Air", which featured several photographs of Olympic divers with pained-looking expressions taken mid-dive.
On the same day, the entertainment news blog Hollywood[29] published an article titled "Get the Gold Medal in Meme with These LOLympics Pictures," highlighting several image macros using photos of Olympic athletes mid-performance.
On August 17th, Something Awful[39] highlighted several photoshopped pictures and animated GIFs of synchronized swimmers from the 2012 London Olympics (shown below).
2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
On February 12th, 2014, BuzzFeed[35] published a compilation of photographs from the 2014 Sochi Olympics featuring figure skaters with comical facial expressions (shown below). In the coming days, several other sites reblogged the figure skating photos, including Distractify,[37] The Telegraph[36] and Sad and Useless.[38]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
Search queries for "perfectly timed photos" began rising in the fall of 2009, several months after the image database Perfectly Timed Photos was created, before hitting an all-time high in July 2011.
External References
[1] Perfectly Timed Photos – Photos Taken at Just the Right Moment
[2] Facebook – perfectly timed photos
[3] Wikipedia – High speed photography
[4] Jstor – The Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television
[5] Univie (via Wayback Machine) – Peter Salcher und Ernst Mach
Schlierenfotografie von ‹berschall-Projektilen
[6] MIT – Camera Culture
[8] Thumper Talk – perfectly timed photos
[9] Best Cool Pics – Perfectly Timed Photos
[10] Dwerf – 25 perfectly timed photos
[11] Break Beat Forums – Post perfectly timed photos (login needed)
[12] Crooked Brains – Perfectly Timed Photos
[13] Ebaumsworld – The well timed photos thread via way back machine
[14] College Humor – Perfectly Timed Picture | January 5th, 2007
[15] Serbian Fighter's Albums (via Wayback Machine) – Timing is everything – Gallery you don't want to miss! | January 9th, 2006
[16] GolfMKV – Perfectly Timed Pictures a.k.a. LOL/WTF Thread! (NSFW) | September 5th, 2007 (login needed)
[17] Top 10 Kid – Top 10 Perfectly Timed Sports Pictures
[18] Harold "Doc" Edgerton Digital Collection
[19] Tumblr – Posts tagged "perfectly timed"
[20] Tumblr – Posts tagged "perfectly timed photos"
[21] Bored Panda – 33 Perfectly Timed Photos
[22] Bored Panda – 50 Perfectly Timed Animal Photos
[23] Enpundit – 25 Perfectly Timed Photos
[24] The Chive – Photos taken at just the right moment
[25] Pleated Jeans – 20 Perfectly Timed Photos
[26] chanarchive – ITT We post perfectly times photos | 3/30/07
[27] chanarchive – ITT: Pictures taken at just the right moment. | 09/04/07
[28] chanarchive – ITT: Perfectly timed pictures | 12/08/07
[29] Hollywood – Get the Gold Medal in Meme with
[30] PetaPixel – The Hilariously Contorted Faces of Divers in Mid-Air
[31] Ryan Seacrest (via Wayback Machine) – Funniest Olympic Memes
[32] The Chive – Perfectly Timed Sports For Your Pleasure
[33] Total Pro Sports – Perfectly Timed Sports Photos Edition
[34] BuzzFeed (via Wayback Machine) – The 20 Funniest Figure Skating Faces
[35] BuzzFeed – The 21 Funniest Figure Skating Faces At The Sochi Olympics
[36] The Telegraph – the funny faces of Olympic figure skaters
[37] Distractify (via Wayback Machine) – 27 funniest faces made during olympic figure skating 2014
[38] Sad and Useless (via Wayback Machine) – Faces of Olympic Figure Skating
[39] Something Awful – De-synchronized Swimmers!
Top Comments
Austin
Dec 20, 2011 at 10:05PM EST
Tiny_Robin
Jun 21, 2012 at 12:07PM EDT