Last-Second Photo Failure

Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.

— "Hiawatha's Photographing" by Lewis Carroll

Taking a picture can be stressful at times. It's a moment that will be immortalized forever, so everyone wants their pictures to be as good as can be. However, that's all a picture actually is — a single instant in time. You may not think that very much can happen in the span of a camera flash, but that's where fiction would prove you wrong. If characters are taking a picture, then there's always a chance that things will fall apart right at the moment the picture is being snapped, thus immortalizing that chaos forever.

There are two key aspects of this trope, both of which need to be true in order for the trope to be in play:

• The disaster happens during a posed photo, which is meant to be "perfect" and "normal". Candid shots don't count, because their entire purpose is to capture reality in the moment. In this trope, it's a posed photo capturing a real moment of disruption, rather than the normal image that was intended. This means that family photos and school photos are a prime time for these things to happen.
• The photo has to be ruined for whoever's in the picture. This means that the "chaos" can vary in scale depending on who's in the picture and what goes wrong with it. For example, if it's a school picture, then the photo can be ruined just by sneezing at the wrong time. If it's a massive group photo, then various things can go wrong, from one or more people moving or looking away as the flash goes off, to the entire picture being ruined by one well-timed prank. Keep in mind, though: If it's the fault of mischief and not an accident, then the mischief needs to be enough to say that the picture "failed". A Bunny Ears Picture Prank may be annoying, but few people would say it ruins a picture the same way that, say, dropping a bucket of slime on everyone does.

This can sometimes overlap with tropes like Photo-Booth Montage, Unflattering ID Photo, Convenient Photograph, or Family Portrait of Characterization. In those tropes, the ruined image is ultimately made meaningful to the rest of the plot, or is framed in a way that makes the chaos even funnier/more unfortunate. This is also a common problem or antic to happen in a Picture Day episode (often in place of the usual unkempt looks of the students).

Compare Camera Obscurer, for another form of photo-taking mishap, and Funny Photo Phrase, for another comedic picture-taking trope.

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Examples:

Advertising

• A commercial for Energizer batteries features the cast of Cheers building a house of cards and setting a camera up to take a picture of them with it. Unfortunately for them, the Energizer Bunny shows up and marches across the table, knocking over the card house as the camera goes off.
• In a commercial for the Ohio Lottery, a woman newly employed by a company is getting her picture taken for her employee ID badge. Just as the picture is snapped, she sneezes.
• Before tobacco adverts were banned in the UK, Hamlet Cigars had a long-running campaign in which people were carrying out various activities only for something to go wrong, whereupon they would console themselves by lighting up a cigar while Bach's Air on a G-String played. One ad showed a man in a photo booth: for the first three shots he gets the timing wrong and isn't posing properly when the flash goes off, and for the fourth the seat collapses so that just the top of his head is visible. Cue the music and clouds of cigar smoke drifting up into shot.

Anime & Manga

• In Chapter 30 / Episode 9 of Asteroid in Love, the Earth Sciences Club takes a group photo, among other else. Mai handles the photography, and when she runs back to her position after starting the countdown, she tripped backward on a step when the countdown ends, causing the photo◊ showing her falling back.
• In the Doraemon OVA episode, What Am I for Momotaro, Doraemon and gang's attempts at taking a picture is interrupted by a mice spooking Doraemon into yelling, making everyone jump and the subsequent photo catching them in a mid-leaping pose.
• Moomin (1990): The Moomins' attempt to take a family photo in "Artists in Moominvalley" goes wrong when almost everyone flinches at the blinding flash that makes them all look white in the photo. What's more, this picture ends up with Moominpappa's other photos to a landscape photographic contest, and he wins the first prize due to the photo being mistaken for a "surrealistic view of some weird white rocks". He's left embarrassed by this, especially when several artists want to paint these rocks for the following landscape painting contest.
• One Piece: The ending "Dreamship" ends like this, with all the Straw Hats mussing up a group photo in panic (some of them even falling out of frame completely).

Comic Strips

• In one Calvin and Hobbes comic, Calvin's dad sneezes while getting his picture taken at the DMV. They don't let him retake it, leading to his embarrassment and Calvin's excitement.
  Calvin: Wow, this is your best driver's license photo ever!
  Dad: Until this expires, I will be driving exactly the speed limit!
• Sally Forth: Ted forgot to shave and then sneezed when they were taking the picture, making him look like he was turning into a werewolf.

Fan Works

• In the comic One Shot to Keep, Twilight is taking a group photo with her friends but falls forward just as the camera is going off. In the resulting photo, she's making a goofy face as Applejack and Rarity lunge forward to catch her. She still keeps and treasures that photo many years later, after she has become immortal and her friends have long since passed away.

Films — Animated

• In a Deleted Scene from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, a photographer is taking pictures of the crew inside the cave that leads to Atlantis when they are attacked by bat-like creatures, the photos showing the ensuing chaos.
• At the end of Encanto, the entire Madrigal family is gathering for a picture. Everything is perfect until Casita decides to join in by raising bits of the floor, sending members of the family colliding into each other or falling over at the exact moment the photo is taken.
• In Turning Red, the picture Mei takes with her family, friends and 4*Town has Abby jumping up on Tae Young's back.

Films — Live-Action

• Mrs. Slocombe's attempts to take a passport photo in Are You Being Served? all end with her taking an absolutely dreadful photo.
• In Too Many Cooks, the Bumbling Dad trying and failing to time a picture with his ever-growing sitcom family happens three times. On the first two attempts, the camera catches him in the middle of his run to the couch. On the third time, he does manage to sit down for the picture, but he still doesn't get to be in the picture; his face gets replaced with the Serial Killer when the picture is taken.

Literature

• In Lewis Carroll's poem "Hiawatha's Photographing", all of the posed portraits Hiawatha takes are failures, but the first one in particular is ruined because its subject makes a slight movement at the wrong moment.
• In Junie B. Jones Has a Monster Under Her Bed, Junie B. is getting her school picture taken by what she calls a "Cheese Man" and she is talking about how her grandpa had taken a picture of her once but she was not ready and wound up with one eye open and one eye closed. She demonstrates just as the Cheese Man takes her picture. Later on, when Paulie Allen Puffer tells her about how a monster can bite her head off, she scrunches her face, wrinkles her nose, and sticks out her tongue just as the Cheese Man snaps the class picture.
• Ramona Quimby: When Ramona's fourth-grade class is getting their pictures taken, Howie asks the photographer if he's bored of making everyone say "cheese." He agrees, so when it's Ramona's turn, he tells her to say "peas." Unfortunately, this backfires because it makes Ramona think of the time she was feeding her baby sister Roberta and got strained peas spewed all over her, and she makes a disgusted face before the camera goes off.

Live-Action TV

• The Big Bang Theory: In "The Prom Equivalency", the main gang is throwing a fake prom and Raj takes photos of each couple. When it's Howard and Bernadette's turn, Raj teases him with "Say 'cousin'!", referring to how he lost his virginity to a cousin; the photo shows Howard angrily charging at the camera. When it's Stuart's turn, he gets a call from Mrs. Wolowitz and is leaving as the picture is taken.
• The Brittas Empire:
  • In "Shall We Dance?", Laura gives Brittas a Photo Memento of the time he built an arbor for her. In the ensuing Flashback, we see Brittas setting up the camera and getting the photo taken with Laura, only to push into her as the photo is taken.
  • The episode "Snap Happy" centers around Brittas' attempts to get a staff photo taken, but it keeps being ruined by trivial things, such as Julie's baby kicking and Colin sneezing. At the end, one final attempt is made, only to get ruined by the staff being distracted by an exploding bomb shelter, a car driving back into the frame, and Helen parachuting into the photo.
• House of Anubis: In "The Touchstone of Ra", Willow is tasked with setting up the senior year class photo for extra credit work. She makes everyone squee and runs over to join the image, but as the picture's being taken, the camera collapses. This means that the class photo shows a toppled camera and everyone reaching out in a panic to fix it.
• How I Met Your Mother: Happens twice in the episode "Say Cheese":
  • Robin finds out that Barney has the same pose in every picture. When asked, Barney claims he never takes a bad picture. Robin spends the episode trying to get a bad photo of Barney. At the end of the episode, the gang is about to take a picture for Lily's birthday. Robin tells Barney there's a hole in his jacket, forcing him to take it off as the picture is being taken. However, when the picture is shown, it shows him in his usual pose. The Stinger shows Robin was able to get a bad picture of Barney by giving him cilantro, which he's allergic to, right before taking a photo. The final picture shows Barney having a sneezing fit.
  • Played straight earlier in the episode when Lily tries to take a photo for her birthday. Ted has invited his latest Girl of the Week along with him to the party. Lily is annoyed by this, as he always includes his current girlfriend in their group activities, only to dump them later. She tries to exclude Ted's girlfriend from the group picture and gets upset when Ted protests. When the picture is taken, Lily is visibly angry and Ted appears shocked.
  • When Robin gets her photo ID taken in "False Positive", she apparently had a photsensitive reaction to the camera flash.
• Modern Family: The main plot of the season one finale is about Claire trying to prepare for the family portrait. Being a control freak, she wants everything to be perfect. When it comes time to take the picture, Phil confesses that he kissed Gloria (they were on the kiss cam) right as the photo is being taken. They try to take another photo, but Cam tells Mitchell that he's mad at him, again as the photo is being taken. This results in an argument that devolves into a mud fight. They then take some photos in their messy clothes, showing a much more relaxed and happy attitude than earlier.
• In the Mr. Bean episode "Goodnight, Mr. Bean", Mr. Bean spends several minutes dressing up and preparing a member of the Royal Guard for a photograph. As he finishes and sets the timer on his camera to snap the picture, the Change of Guard is called and he marches off to his next post, leaving a picture to be taken of Mr. Bean chasing after him.
• The Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode The Day The Earth Froze opens with Joel trying to wrangle the bots for a family photo. Just when he manages to get them to stop goofing off and Magic Voice tells everyone to say "Cheese", Gypsy realizes Joel left the light meter he was using during setup on the desk and the photo gets snapped right as he goes to move it.
• The Animated Credits Opening of The Nanny has Fran and the Sheffield family take a family portrait on a classic camera, only for the lightbulb to explode and rendering everyone with messy hair, clothes and an Ash Face.
• Played With in the Odd Squad episode "Picture Day". Otto's first ID picture has his face contorted as though he's about to sneeze, and he expresses interest in getting a new picture taken because of it. At the end of the episode, he gets a normal picture taken, but the new picture that is produced looks identical to the old one (save a shift in chin placement to the right, according to Otto himself). Olive is quick to point out how similar the two photos are, despite Otto's insistence that they are different.
• Sesame Street: In one episode, a woman tries to take a photo of Ernie's baby niece Ernestine. However, in two of the photos, she turns away and in the third, she sneezes. Eventually, the woman decides to just keep the three photos and give up trying to take a perfect one.
• The Tracey Ullman Show: In one The Simpsons short, Homer has to take a family photo and starts setting the timer. Whenever he tried to take a picture, things went wrong. He shouted D'oh in the first attempt. The second attempt he accidentally stood in front of his family. The third attempt, he strangled Bart for making funny faces while Lisa and Maggie do the same.

Video Games

• Celeste: Theo decides to take a selfie with Madeline while the two are riding a gondola lift. The lift suddenly stalls right when Theo takes the picture, and moments later Madeline starts having a panic attack. Once the lift starts working again and the two make it back to solid ground, Theo cheers up Madeline by showing her the selfie, which ended up capturing their startled faces.
• Dungeon Keeper 2: Two of the skits you get upon successfully completing a mission involve a cast photo (of the monsters and heroes) going terribly wrong. In "Baked Beans?", the Bile Demon gets a sudden gas attack when the button is pressed, leading to a picture where the entire rest of the cast are passed out or fleeing the expanding gas cloud, while in "Here, Chicky Chicky" the Warlock gets annoyed by the giant bumping into him and turns the entire rest of the cast into chickens just as the picture is taken.
• Hitman 3: One of the ways to kill Alexa Carlisle is to pretend to be her hired photographer, sit her in a puddle, then rig the camera to electrocute her when it fires. The resulting photo, which you are shown, captures her falling out of her seat mid-electrocution, with the rest of her family reacting in shock.
• During Link's various flashbacks in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild we see the ceremony where he was knighted and recognized alongside the other champions of Hyrule. At the end of the ceremony the group went to take a formal picture, but just before the picture could be snapped the Goron champion and Boisterous Bruiser Daruk started to sweep the entire group into an enormous bear hug. The picture gets snapped while they're right in the middle of being knocked around by Daruk. While their reactions and feelings about it vary, Revali, Link's arrogant Rito rival, was furious about it.
• Mario Party:
  • Mario Party 7: Invoked by Bowser whenever he does a group photo of everyone for Bowser Time. Sometimes, as soon as he takes the photo, he will jump into the middle of it, blocking everybody else.
  • Mario Party 10: In Flash Forward, the objective is to stand on a pedestal where a photo is about to be taken. However, the camera only takes one shot, and each player must be as close to the center of the frame in order to win. As such, the players will try to punch and ground pound their opponents off of the pedestal to take the photo for themselves, and once the camera flashes, the resulting photo will most likely feature the characters pushing each other around.
  • Super Mario Party: In Slaparazzi, a red Koopa Troopa approaches the circular arena to stand on one of five surrounding pedestals, and takes a photo of the four players from wherever they're standing. The players must run over to stand in front of them to be in the picture, but the character closest to the middle of the frame will get the most points, so the players are encouraged to slap their rivals out of the way to take center stage. After each photo is taken, the results are shown onscreen, which typically have the characters slapping each other instead of properly posing for the photo.
• Nickelodeon Clickamajigs: In "Family Portrait", a family is attempting to take a picture, but every time the player clicks the button, something goes wrong, usually as the result of the mischievous son Timmy. A few of his antics include streaking across the camera, spitting at the camera, and getting into a fight with his sister.
• Once someone's won a game of Party Animals, the players are placed around a podium with the winner on top. You are free to act during this period, and then a photo is taken at the end, leading to photos with people posed mid-jump, out of frame, punching each other, or even knocked out (in fact, knocking someone out during the end-of-match screen is even an achievement!)
• Persona 3: When SEES and members of the Kirijo group are having a party to celebrate the defeat of Arcana Hanged Man, which would end the Dark Hour, Junpei calls for a group photo. At first it goes well, until Koromaru gets spooked by Akihiko's sudden yell when Junpei's pose means his hand got in Akihiko's face and leaps out, scrambling the group.
• What Remains of Edith Finch: Sam tries to take a picture of him and his daughter Dawn in front of the deer she had hunted. The picture catches Sam being hurled off the cliff by the deer as Dawn watches.

Web Animation

• Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged: While visiting Nibelheim, Cloud and Sephiroth get a group photo with Tifa, only for Cloud to sneeze just as the photo is taken. Subverted come the premiere of season 4 which reveals the real photo to actually be Zack in Cloud's place and shown to having been able to keep a stance.
• Happy Tree Friends: In "See What Develops", Mime is seen juggling a few balls while riding a unicycle. Disaster Dominoes strike when he is blinded by The Mole's camera, followed by crashing into Handy, now with a few tools in the former's hands, before finally entering a photo booth. The resulting images show how he died in the episode.
  • In "From A To Zoo", Sniffles is asked to move closer to a baboon by Lumpy, to the point where he was right on the edge of the cage. Once it flashes, the baboon is shown with red eyes and grabbing onto the bars. It was at this point that it starts attacking Sniffles.
• The Misfortune Of Being Ned: In "Family Reunion", Ned and his family pose for a picture. When the picture was taken, half of the family members were killed because of a boulder squishing them flat.
• Red vs. Blue: At the end of the Family Shatters intro, Shatter Squad gathers for a group photo, only for Diesel to come crashing in just as the camera goes off. The resulting photo shows Diesel standing in the middle while everyone else is being flung away with the force of his landing, the cake that Raymond was holding having gone flying into West's face.

Webcomics

• Dean & Nala + Vinny: Nala needs her picture taken for a pet passport so that Customs allows her to enter a country. Since Dean's phone only has 1% battery left, Vinny can only take one picture of Nala, no outtakes. The picture depicts the normally photogenic cat as cross-eyed and having big buck teeth.
• Twilight's First Day:
  • Twilight and her family take a photo before her first day of school, but her saddlebag is overloaded, causing her to fall down just as the photo is being taken.
  • Later, she has to have a photo taken for her library card, but because she's so excited to go check out the rest of the library, she runs for the books the second the flash goes off. The resulting photo just looks like a blue and purple blur.
    Photographer: Well, here's your card, but...I don't think anypony will recognize you unless you're always moving that fast!

Western Animation

• Arthur:
  • In "Francine's Bad Hair Day", it's Picture Day at Arthur's school, wherein several photos are ruined, both in the past and in the present.
    • According to flashbacks, during the previous picture day, Buster (due to having drunk soda beforehand) burped, and Binky (due to hay fever from the flower he was wearing) sneezed while having their pictures taken, while Prunella got a static shock which messed up her hair.
    • Meanwhile, in the present day, Buster asks the photographer "Remember me? I'm the kid who burped.", only to have the picture taken while he's still speaking. Arthur's picture has the flash from the camera reflecting off of his glasses. After Francine gets her picture taken despite having dirtied herself, an angry Muffy scowls for her picture.
  • Played with in "Arthur & the Real Mr. Ratburn". Mr. Haney is getting a picture taken of himself in a western scene. When he tells Mrs. MacGrady that he wants more of an action pose, Arthur and Buster crawl into the booth and the former knocks down a cactus prop, which spooks the horse and makes it buck just as the photo is snapped, giving Mr. Haney his desired action pose.
  • In "Bugged", during the Brain's Nightmare Sequence, he gets his picture taken, but is Blinded by the Light from the camera flash, screams, and runs away (on all six legs, since he's turned into a cockroach/human hybrid).
    Photographer: "I think we'll need to take that one again."
  • One of the show's recurring title cards features the entire Read family, including Grandma Thora and Grandpa Dave, getting into the large circle for a photo. Right after the title is read out loud, Baby Kate is heard crying and as the photo is taken, Grandma Thora is shown pushing past Mr. Read to grab Kate from a surprised Mrs. Read, and D.W. holds Pal up to her face.
• The Big Garage: The living tool segment of “The Latest Style” has the Spanners, Oil Can, and Saw repeatedly invoke this on the hapless narrator, who only wants a nice picture of them. After several ruined attempts, the narrator gives up… and realizes that she enjoys looking at the goofy pictures more than she would’ve enjoyed looking at a picture of the tools posing nicely.
• Bobby's World: In "Generics Under Construction", the Generic family is about to have their family photo taken by Mr. Inkwell, when Meeker and Snerd, the architects who have been making renovations to the Generics' house, crash through a wall.
• The Cuphead Show!: In "Say Cheese!", Cuphead and Mugman start fighting when they're about to get a photo taken with Elder Kettle in front of a billboard. The fight results in the billboard being caught on fire, revealing a Diaper Baby ad featuring an infant Elder Kettle as the picture is taken.
• Family Guy episode "And Then There's Fraud" has Stewie getting plastic surgery after a family outing has the ticket man assuming he was a three-year-old. After it eventually renders him blind, he gets a reversal surgery to undo all of his work and poses for his photo day at school with his old, original face...until the last second where his face splits in two as he horrifyingly glares at it and that shot made it into the yearbook.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "The Big Picture", Mac and Bloo try to solve a mystery of how all the imaginary friends mysteriously disappeared one year during the titular house's annual group photo shoot. As they find out, the cause was that a friend named Wally pulled a prank by turning the stairway into a trapdoor and opening it just as the shot was taken, which got him banished from the house (and all conversation). At the end of the episode, Bloo does the exact same stunt for the new photo shoot.
• The Garfield Show: The entire episode "Family Picture" has Jon wanting to give a picture of him, Garfield, and Odie to Liz for her birthday. Hilarity Ensues, from not getting in the picture fast enough, annoying neighbors, and an alien stealing the camera. Eventually, they go to a professional photographer, however it's revealed at Liz's birthday that the picture shows all three of them sporting terrible smiles.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Be A-Fred, Be Very A-Fred", Grim has to spend a day with Fred Fredburger, who won a contest from the laxative company Grim's a spokesman for, and he has Mandy take a picture of them together to impress the company's executives with. Fred keeps ruining the shot by opening his mouth to eat his ice cream, and the last shoot has Billy suddenly blocking them in the frame.
• Higglytown Heroes: In "Me and My Shadow", Ms. Fern gets ready to take a picture of Kip placing the flag on the class's newly finished block tower; however, Kip's dog Shadow happened to charge right through the window at that time, and the picture comes out with him flinching as Shadow knocks down the tower.
• Little Princess: In "I Want My Tooth", the cast tries to take a group photo, but it goes wrong several times — first the Princess ties a piece of fabric around her face to hide her missing tooth, then she faces away from the camera, then she runs away while the photo is being taken, then the Prime Minister carries the Gardener's rake.
• The Loud House: Played with in "Picture Perfect". Lincoln makes several attempts to make a formal photo of himself, his sisters, and their pets as a gift to their parents for their anniversary. When the first photo goes off due to the sisters' impatience from the camera taking too long to shoot, Lincoln takes various more while changing the sisters' looks (much to their dissatisfaction) with similar outcomes, which means he decides to keep the first photo at the end. The parents like the photo since it sums up the Loud family's chaotic nature.
• Martha Speaks: In one episode, Helen wants her school photo retaken since she sneezed while her photo was being taken and thus is making a derpy face.
• Ooglies: A recurring sketch features a living camera that keeps trying to take photos of a bunch of other Ooglies, only for something to go wrong (mainly something connected to the sketches featuring the other Ooglies in question).
• The Patrick Star Show: "Dad's Stache Stash" ends with Rube taking a picture of the Star family. However, he gets hit by a train midway through. The resulting photo only shows the bottom half of the family.
• The Proud Family:
  • The original show's title sequence ends with the Prouds taking a family picture with a timer. When the photo is taken, Sugar Mama's dog Puff is biting Oscar in the ear, while CeCe is making a face.
  • The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder takes it further with CeCe biting Oscar's other ear, while BeBe is pulling on Puff's tail.
• Rugrats (1991):
  • At the end of "A Visit From Lipschitz", when the main cast gathers for a group photo with Dr. Lipschitz, they shout "Cheese!" which makes Lipschitz turn around and ask where the cheese is just as the photo is taken.
  • In "Let it Snow", when Didi looks through an album of last year's Christmas photos, she finds that Stu could never hold still in any of them. At the end of the episode, when Lou takes pictures of the Pickles family, Stu once again can't keep still in any of the photos, except for the last one, which Didi doesn't hold still in when she scolds Stu.
• The Simpsons: In "Marge Not Be Proud", the Simpson family goes to a store to get their Christmas picture taken. Unfortunately, Bart had been banned from the store earlier for attempted shoplifting, and the security guard shows up and grabs Bart just as the picture is taken.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Wormy", SpongeBob and Patrick have followed a "monster" (actually a butterfly) to the Krusty Krab, where Squidward is taking a picture of Mr. Krabs with a dollar bill. The picture catches SpongeBob tackling down Krabs to save him from the butterfly.
• Total Drama: On the first episode, all 22 campers at Camp Wawanakwa pose for a mandatory group photo. Camp Wawanakwa is a shithole in disrepair, so of course, the dock the campers were on collapses and all of them end up in the water. The resulting picture shows some of them holding onto loose wood or sinking.

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