Thursday, October 29, 2009

Nuts!




I don't know how I missed this one. But seeing as this is turning out to be the week of The Year in Pictures "Believe It Or Not" edition, here is a photograph that from all accounts I've read is not a fake.

Melissa and Jackson Brandt had set the auto-timer on their camera while posing by Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park in Canada. Just as the shutter was about to click, the squirrel popped up in the foreground, becoming yet another unwitting star of the internet.

According to Melissa: "We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot." The picture was submitted to the website of National Geographic magazine and from there began to make its way round the world.

The couple appeared on The Today Show where Matt Lauer grilled them over the picture's authenticity, but after further investigation he apologized and declared he was satisfied that the picture was real and un-doctored.

6 comments:

frank_ezelle said...

When I saw this photo it brought up a technical question that maybe someone here can answer. When using the 10 second delay, do most cameras continue to refocus during that 10 seconds? I thought they locked in on a subject and didn't change after the shutter gets pushed. Otherwise, it seems like a focus could get all messed up by the person walking or running to get in position to be in the shot.

If the camera doesn't refocus after the shutter is pushed, then this has to be a fake unless the squirrel was in the photo from the very beginning. Just wondering.

Frank.

Anonymous said...

They used a remote shutter release, not a timer. No 10 sec. delay. "....became intrigued with the sound of the ( presumably auto) focusing camera and popped right into our shot." I believe it was a new toy with IR technology they were playing with.

Christopher Paquette said...

Sadly, I don't trust anything anymore... sigh

Patrick Cavan Brown said...

I'm with your, Chris... sad indeed.

Anonymous said...

"Matt Lauer grilled them"
isn't it good to know that hard hitting investigative journalism is alive and well.

Jim Powell said...

How do things like this get on the today show and in national geographic?