Photobombing

  Photobomb

  Syllabification: (pho·to·bomb)

  Pronunciation:/ˈfōtōˌbäm/

  informal

  verb

  [with object]

• spoil a photograph of (a person or thing) by unexpectedly appearing in the camera’s field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke: we were interrupted and photobombed by at least twenty tourists

  I was going through our vacation photos the other day; one last look back at the

  rapidly fading Summer of ‘13. There, in both shots I took of Holly and Paul at the    

  Lincoln Memorial, there were strangers along with Abe in the background.

  Inadvertently, we were photobombed.

  

  The dude on the left jumped in to take his shot just at the last minute and became  

  part of our family’s permanent record. Just as I pushed the button, he moved into the

  frame.
 

  The problem is, in the shot before it, his daughter (you can see just a bit of her  

  neon green shirt in the background) jumped in for her pose in front of Abe just I took

  the picture.
 

  Alas, it was very crowded at the Linc on a summer Sunday afternoon, so perhaps it
  was impossible to take a perfectly clean photo that day.
 

  Seeing those two photos made me wonder, though, about the identity of this other

  family. Who is this family is? Where are they from?
 

  Moreover, I wonder how many other unidentified folks have shown up in our pix over

  the years.
 

  Titans games. Concerts. Crowd shots. Vacation pix. There would have to be

  thousands. And, each one has its own unique story.
 

  Like the man in this shot we took at Paul’s birthday dinner back in May.
 

  

  What are the odds that this man would come up to the window just as the photo was

  taken?
 

  It’s a classic.
 

  Of course, it isn’t nearly as classic as one we once took at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of

  Fame in Cleveland. We visited the Rock Hall in 2004. Just inside the building, we set

  up a family picture and some guy in the background decided to have a little fun -

  smiling and waving for our camera.
 

  I went looking for that pic as I was putting this piece together but I think I must’ve

  culled it out of our collection. Our group photo from Cleveland - the one in our book -

  is pretty clean.
 

  Of course, the flipside of all of this (the hundreds and hundreds is unidentified folks

  who show up in the background of our photos) is…the process must happen in

  reverse. That is to say, as much as there are unidentified people in the backgrounds

  of the photos in our scrapbooks, so must we be featured in the scrapbooks of

  unidentified people all across the country and, possibly, around the world.
 

  Just think, there were numerous Europeans visiting our nation’s capitol the same  

  week as us. Our family might well be featured in photo albums in Prague or Pau.
 

  Just as I wonder, tonight, about the folks at the Lincoln Memorial, they might wonder

  about us too. 
 

  Makes you think.
 

  JG

Originally posted 8/21/2013