Photo Bombing

About

Photo Bombing is a popular IRL prank that involves trespassing and posing distraction in the background during a photo shoot, otherwise known as “ruining” someone else’s picture.

EXHIBIT A: as you can see, it defies the need for any further explanation.

Origin

One of the first famous photobombers (if not the first) was Rollen Stewart, AKA “The Rainbow Man” who became a pop culture phenomenon in the late 70’s and early 80’s by wearing a rainbow-colored afro wig, while holding up signs reading “John 3:16” at sporting events nationwide.

According to thisisphotobom.com (the link is now down but another article here deals with the same event), Stewart is currently serving three consecutive life sentences in connection with a hostage situation in 1992.
Excerpt:

Convinced to “get his message” across, Stewart slowly descended into madness; getting arrested at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, attacking promienet places of business with stink bombs and finally taking a hotel maid hostage which resulted in a standoff with police as the Rainbow Man shrieked that the Rapture was nigh in six days time.

Read more about Rollen Stewart on Wikipedia.
Read about the 1997 documentary The Rainbow Man on filmcritic.com

While the earliest instances of photo-bombing may precede the history of internets, it’s likely this prank became a “socially okay” thing to do only after the rise of mass market digital cameras in the 2000s. Photobomb collections can be found on image-sharing sites like Photobucket, Flickr, Facebook) and single topic blogs including This is Photobomb, Photobombing, Photobomb.

Video Bombing

The technique can be also applied in the field of motion pictures, especially during live news reports. Requiring a higher level of concentration and some sort of immunity to public eyes, one could arguably say this is borderline performance art. Also see: I Hate Iceland.

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