Perfectly Timed Photos

About

Perfectly Timed Photos, sometimes referred to as “well timed photos”, are photographs taken at specific times to showcase a spectacular moment (often at high speeds) or to create an optical illusion, similar to forced perspective. Photos like the 9/11 Tourist Guy have been edited to appear as if they were taken during a fabricated event.

Origin

According to Wikipedia^[3], the first photograph of a flying bullet was taken in 1886 by Austrian physicist Peter Sacher. An article in The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television^[4] claims that German scientists perfected a high speed motion camera, the “Zeitlupe”, in 1916. In the 1940s, Cearcy Miller filed a patent for a rotating mirror camera that was eventually used during the nuclear research and development program known as the “Manhattan Project” to photograph nuclear bombs. Advances in this type of photography eventually led to high resolution photographs of water droplets and bullet impacts.

One of the earliest known uses of the phrase “perfectly timed photo” comes from a thread in the motorcycle and ATV enthusiast Thumper Talk^[8] forums on October 18th, 2007. The thread featured photos taken during dirt bike competitions while the riders were performing tricks mid-air.

Spread

On October 28th, 2007, a thread was posted to the drum and bass enthusiast Break Beat^[11] forums titled “Post Perfectly Timed Photos.” The blog Dwerf posted “25 perfectly timed photos”^[10] on November 4th, 2007. On November 27th, 2007, a compilation of perfectly timed photos was posted to the blog Best Cool Pics.^[9] On May 7th, 2008, a compilation was posted to the blog Crooked Brains.^[12] On July 21st, 2009, a “well timed photos” thread was posted to the Ebaumsworld^[13] forums. 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.

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 spiking in July of 2009.

External References