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DAY 48 | PHOTOGRAPHIC CURIOSITIES |
Urban Legends I
DYING TO GET THAT FINAL SHOT
Ever since its invention, photography has featured prominently in the annals of contemporary folklore.
“Urban legends” are stories that are told as true accounts, yet cannot be proved to have ever actually taken place. In addition, the same story usually appears across different states, countries, and even continents, yet is always said to have happened in a specific nearby location. The prototypical urban legend is usually attributed to a “friend of a friend.”
In spite of their apocryphal nature, however, urban legends bear layers of deeper meaning. Like all legends throughout history, they often contain moral lessons, give voice to collective fears, and are a window into the psyche of a particular generation.
One such tale involves a photographer who supposedly managed to capture a spectacular, close-up shot of a hostile animal seconds before it attacked him or her. In some versions, the unlucky individual was a Japanese journalist camping in the wilderness of Siberia who managed to snap a shot of a bear that was attacking him.1 Another variant sets the story in Spain, where a tourist captures an image of a bull a moment before being trampled.2
How close would a photographer get for that perfect shot?
Needless to say, the idea that any individual (even the most devoted photographer) would spend the last few seconds of their life fiddling with his camera seems highly unlikely. As is the case with many urban legends, however, skeptical disbelief is often suspended when the story taps into such a universal concern as the fear of untimely death. —DJS