History Main / PhotosLie

-->'''-- Diane Arbus'''

* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'': Due to the prevalence of cyberbrains and how easy it is to hack them, photographs that have nothing to do with reality show up several times. In the first movie, a man is convinced he has a family and is devastated when he learns none of them are real (oddly enough, in the manga he gets over it in two panels), and even the Major gets hit with it in ''Anime/GhostInTheShellArise'', carrying a photo of a woman she thinks raised her.

* Taken very literally in ''Series/VeronicaMars''. Veronica figures out that the bus crash in Season 2 is linked to Woody Goodman's Little League team, and he molested several of the boys he mentored. She spends an entire episode going painstakingly through every single name on the photograph...only to realize that the actual BigBad, [[spoiler:Cassidy Casablancas]], was [[TitleDrop "Not Pictured"]], which allowed [[spoiler:him]] to [[spoiler:kill Woody, try to kill Keith, and put Mac in mortal danger.]]

PlayedForDrama, the photo is usually shown first and there doesn't seem like there's anything wrong until someone reveals the story of what happened before or after it was taken.

Compare FormerFriendsPhoto, where the picture doesn't lie but doesn't match up with current state of things, either.

* While not a "photo" in one episode of Series/{{MASH}} has Colonel Potter painting the other six main characters who are bickering after Hawkeye, BJ, and Winchester weren't talking to each and Houlihan, Klinger, and Mulcahy lied to them in order to get them to forgive each other and now the lies were unraveling. The painting shows them as a happy family.

* While not a "photo" in one episode of Series/{{Mash}} has Colonel Potter painting the other six main characters who are bickering after Hawkeye, BJ, and Winchester weren't talking to each and Houlihan, Klinger, and Mulcahy lied to them in order to get them to forgive each other and now the lies were unraveling. The painting shows them as a happy family.

'''PlayedForLaughs''':

'''PlayedForDrama''':

--> In our family portrait, we look pretty happy
--> Let's play pretend, act like it goes naturally

* Zig-zagged in an episode of ''RoyalPains''. Hank's father gives Hank a picture of himself with Hank and Evan when they were young kids, and Evan remembers what a good day that was. Hank disagrees, and flashbacks reveal that the photo was taken after their father used his sons to help him steal back a tractor that had been repossessed. As more flashbacks are shown, though, it turns out that Hank learned [[MacGyvering some of his valuable present-day skills]] from that experience, and the three of them bonded over the whole thing: it actually ''was'' a good day.