"I have a question. Why is it, in these pictures—pictures of aliens, UFOs, the yeti, Hellboy—why is it they're always out of focus?"
— Tom Manning, Hellboy (2004)
In fiction, characters dissatisfied with the common perception of events will go looking for proof to the contrary, regardless of whether it's a crime, a conspiracy, the existence of magic, or a UFO. Somehow, the character will find the proof they were looking for and get a photo of it, or maybe even some video footage if they're lucky...
...but for some reason, the photograph will always turn out wrong: it's blurred, it's out of focus, it's pointed in the wrong direction, the light levels are all wrong, nobody can work out what the hell they're even looking at, and more often than not, it looks completely fake.
And the same applies for video evidence: too much static, too much shaky cam, too far away... or maybe the battery on the camera ran out.
Whatever the case, it's no good as evidence, but very convenient for upholding the Masquerade.
As for why this happens, it's usually because the photographer is shooting under stress and fumbling the camera, maybe even trying to take a photo or hit record while running for their lives. However, in other cases, it's because of something to do with the subject: either they're moving too quickly, something supernatural about them is damaging the camera, or they simply can't show up in photographs except as blurry silhouettes.
Funnily enough, in the world of fiction, it's surprisingly rare for a photo to be blurred simply because the photographer is just a con artist or even a true believer desperate for supporters and using the blur to disguise a fake: it's almost always the real deal, just taken by a really unlucky shutterbug — but of course, nobody will believe them.
Depending on the story, this can become part of a larger investigation that ushers in the real meat and potatoes of the story, or just a sign of how dense the Masquerade really is.
A possible inversion of Convenient Photograph.
Compare Camera Obscurer, in which the important evidence is hidden by the lens cap or (more embarrassingly) the photographer's finger. Contrast Inconvenient Darkroom Illumination, which occurs after the photo is taken and invariably results in the evidence being destroyed. Contrast Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation, in which a photograph is partially or fully covered to hide something important from the audience, not the characters.
See also Inconveniently Vanishing Exonerating Evidence. See also Last-Second Photo Failure for a more comedic take on pictures being ruined - though there may be overlap if the ruined evidence came from a split-second distraction or disruption.
Examples:
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ARGs
- There's Something in the Sea: Phase One ends with Mark Meltzer managing to follow the trail of the child-kidnapping Traveler all the way to its next port of call and get a snapshot of it. Of course, since the Traveler turns out to be a Big Sister, she's moving too quickly for Mark to properly photograph, so all he manages to photograph is a blurry shape seemingly hovering in front of him. Worse still, the Traveler doesn't appreciate unwanted attention and follows Mark home — resulting in Mark's daughter Cindy becoming the next target.
Comic Books
- DC Universe: Heroes with some level of Super-Speed, like Superman and the Golden Age Flash, have been known to vibrate their faces just enough so that, if a photo were to be taken of them, they wouldn’t be recognized by someone looking at it.
- Grayson: Spyral agents are outfitted with Hypnos Implants, which allow agents to be undetectable by various means, including visual. Of course, it's not perfect — twice Dick Grayson got found out because of his iconic butt.
Midnighter: Your nifty Hypnos tech trick may make it so I can't see Spyral agents' faces...but I'd know that ass anywhere. Grayson.
Films — Live-Action
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Discussed with regards to photos of U.F.O. sightings:
Major Benchley: Last year, Americans shot more than seven billion photographs at a record of 6.6 billion dollars for film, equipment, and processing. Now with all those shutters clicking, where is the indisputable, photographic evidence?Reporter: Major Benchley, I've been in the news business for a long time, and our cameras have never been able to take a picture of a plane crash as it actually happened or an automobile accident and get it on the 6:00 news.
- Frailty: Fenton Meiks mentions that his father, an apparently insane Serial Killer, believed he was under God's protection and as such was undetectable while doing God's work, including by cameras. When Fenton turns out to be Adam Meiks, carrying on his father's murders (which are of genuine demons disguised as humans), a security video of him entering an FBI building is scrambled and prevents investigators from seeing his face. It COULD be simple bad luck...but that doesn't explain why an agent who met Adam the night before can't recall what he looked like at all.
- Hellboy (2004): Discussed; Hellboy has become an urban legend over the course of his life and has attracted a lot of conspiracy theorists trying to get a photo of him, much to the annoyance of Tom Manning, who finds maintaining the Masquerade on the BPRD's behalf deeply annoying. Fortunately, the photographers somehow never manage to get a close-up shot of Hellboy, resulting in the usual Bigfoot-style out-of-focus photos, and when one such photo is shown to Manning on TV, he uses its blurry format as an easy means of debunking it — resulting in the page quote.
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Parodied; with Tom Manning now in charge of the BPRD, he finds the efforts to suppress evidence of the supernatural even harder, especially given the prickly relationship between him and Hellboy. As such, during a disgruntled chat with Abe Sapien early in the film, Manning brings out a collection of the latest photos: the first three are the usual blurry, Bigfoot-like photos of Hellboy seen at a distance... and the fourth is of Hellboy making a peace sign at the camera. "He posed for this one," Manning grumbles.
- Hit the Ice: Flash and Tubby unwittingly take photos of a group of bank robbers leaving a bank, but end up as the prime suspects in the robbery since the photos were taken from behind and therefore don’t show the robbers’ faces.
- Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: One of the things the rogue artificial intelligence known as the Entity can do is modify any digital evidence on the Internet, preventing any people affiliated with the Entity from turning up in photos. This is very useful for one of his goons, Gabriel, to move around without being detected by the Intelligence services in the former film.
- My Cousin Vinny: Mona Lisa has been taking photos throughout the film, including of the crime scene. Vinny, while frustrated, flips through her photos and writes them off as useless. Subverted: The one with the tire marks, which he initially says is too far away to be helpful, ends up being pivotal to proving the boys innocent when combined with Mona Lisa's encyclopedic knowledge of cars.
Vinny: Ahh, here's a good one of the tire marks. Could we get any farther away? Where'd you shoot this from? Up in a tree?
- No Way Out (1987): Zig-Zagged; a major plot point revolves around a film negative found at the scene of Susan's murder. Scott plots to cover up Secretary Brice's culpability by pointing to the severely blurred film negative as possibly depicting Susan's killer, claimed to be a Soviet mole, so the Pentagon sets about developing and deblurring it... except Commander Farrell, who is in charge of the investigation, knows full well the film frame depicts HIM in a completely innocent context, so he has to send the investigation on a wild goose chase while he tries to find the real killer. And then there's the really fun part at the end where it turns out Farrell really is a Soviet mole.
- The Power (1968): A variation; whilst on the hunt for the mysterious "Adam Hart", Professor Jim Tanner visits Sally Hallson, the widow of Doctor Henry Hallson (whom Hart murdered), hoping she will be able to help him as Hallson had known Hart beforehand. Unfortunately, he finds Hart has gotten there first, and Sally only has vague memories left. She does have a picture of Henry with Adam from back when they were young, but unfortunately for Jim, the old photo has become so worn and light damaged with age that it's effectively worthless.
Game Books
- Suspects: One of the suspects accidentally takes an instant photo of the murder as it happens, which is very blurred, but it serves as a clue to the murderer's identity.
Literature
- In The Canterbury Puzzles by Henry Ernest Dudeney, one riddle
is about a photo which was presented to a jealous wife as evidence that her husband was walking with another lady. However, due to sudden rain, not only is the man's head obscured, it is also impossible to determine whether the two were walking in the same direction. The riddle is about trying to at least prove the latter. It turns out the lady in question was the husband's sister, but the two were, in fact, walking in the same direction.
- The Dresden Files: Photographs of the supernatural don't work very well, thanks to how magic works. While multiple photographs and even a video recording are made of a super-werewolf that goes rampaging through a police station in Fool Moon, all of them are blurry and distorted and the video recording even begins to lose quality over time, with Harry pointing out that it already looks like what you'd expect from an amateur horror movie. By the time of the next book, most people had forgotten about it entirely.
- Hoot: As part of his plan to present evidence that there are endangered burrowing owls at the pancake house site, Roy gives his camera to Mullet Fingers and asks him to take a picture of one. When Roy presents the camera at the announcement of the pancake house opening, it becomes clear Mullet Fingers was having trouble figuring out how to use the camera; the first picture is a finger, the second is a foot, and the third is of a burrowing owl, but it looks like an indistinct blur. Chuck Muckle, the Mother Paula's vice president, laughs at it and says, "That’s an owl, then I’m a bald eagle."
Live-Action TV
- American Horror Story: Hotel: In "Chutes and Ladders", Scarlett sneaks into the Hotel Cortez's secret Nightmarish Nursery and meets one of the vampire children. She tries to take a selfie with him as evidence, only for the kid to very suddenly go for her neck, prompting her to flee the building in terror...and thanks to the child's vampiric nature, all Scarlett ends up with is a selfie of a vague blur. Conveniently, this ensures that she can't prove that her long-lost brother Holden is still alive, having been kidnapped, converted, and adopted by the Countess.
- Judge John Deed: In "Above the Law", a vital witness is killed by one of the defendant's friends, who drives over her in a van. The Judge has a meeting with the Chief Constable, who says that the van was seen on CCTV, but that the driver was a blur. He adds that they are trying to enhance the images and that they are checking every camera in town.
- Misfits: Played with in the second episode of series 1; here Nathan discovers that his mother's boyfriend Jeremy has been affected by the Storm just like the rest of the main characters - except instead of superpowers, he's ended up with Delusions of Doghood after dark, inspiring him to strip naked and go running around on all fours. Convinced that this will convince his mother to break up with Jeremy, Nathan goes so far as to chase after him one night so he can take a photo of him in dog mode... but because he ends up getting jumped by the overexcited Jeremy, he doesn't have a chance to go for his phone until the target's already running away, meaning that all he gets is a shot of "cock, anus, bit of ballsack." However, given that Jeremy has a gigantic penis, this blurry snapshot is apparently all the proof he needs to accuse him. However, it turns out to be pointless, since Nathan's mother already knows of Jeremy's condition and has accepted it.
- Weird Science: In "Gary Wallace: Boy Reporter", Gary joins the school newspaper to become close to the girl in charge, so Lisa gives him a pen capable of Rewriting Reality to have material for good stories. However, the girl demands concrete proof, and no amount of magic can make Wyatt take a proper photo to support Gary's claims.
- The X-Files: The sixth episode, "Shadows", has Mulder and Scully investigate surveillance footage taken from an ATM shortly before a pair of muggers were killed. Scully notes that the resolution of the image is too poor to make out a blur in the background that might be connected to the assault.
Standup Comedy
- Mitch Hedberg, observing how photos of Bigfoot always seem to be blurred, joked that it's because Bigfoot himself is blurry.
It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry, and that's extra scary to me. There's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run, he's fuzzy, get out of here.
Tabletop Games
- Vampire: The Requiem: Vampires appear as only a vague blur on camera. It depends whether or not this is an advantage; it's impossible to identify them and difficult to see what they're doing, but to anyone who knows about the Masquerade, it can be a dead giveaway that a vampire was there. 2nd Edition makes the effect subtler: somehow there's always something blocking the shot, or the image is overexposed, or the vampire happens to be looking away...
Video Games
- Ace Attorney: Lotta Heart holds the record for the most plot-relevant photos, so naturally a couple are less useful.
- Her first appearance involves taking photos of a distant boat on a foggy lake at night.
- In the Investigation series, there is a nasty case of motion blur from photographing a fast-moving object.
- The Art of Theft: Early on in the game, Trilby gets ambushed with his mask removed and several photos taken of his face for blackmail purposes. The entire rest of the game centers around recovering said pictures, involving taking on an entire nebulous secret society... and at the very end it turns out that the pictures are far too blurry to be useful, meaning the whole threat to his identity was null from the start.
- 1979 Revolution: Black Friday: The major reason Reza is approached by the resistance is that they see him photographing the protest where Abbas is stabbed and think that one of his pictures may have shown who was responsible. Unfortunately, when the photos finally develop, the picture of the stabbing is worthless, but Reza must still declare who he suspects. No matter who he chooses, the person is killed, and Hajj Agha says that they were innocent.
- Ripper: Variant; Catherine Powell is left comatose following her encounter with the Ripper early in the game, though the technicians at the MediCog are able to recover an image of the killer from her mind... that just so happens to be too distorted to make any sense of. One of the ongoing goals of the game is to rebuild Catherine's memory by feeding her information she'd recovered so far, with the hope that doing this long enough will clear up the image and reveal the Ripper's face. In the finale, Dr Cable calls Jake to the hospital to report that the image is clearing up... only for the image to completely vanish by the time Jake gets there; the Ripper's identity isn't revealed until after the final confrontation.
- Super Lesbian Animal RPG: Parodied with the "Cryptic Cryptid" enemy. Despite all enemies being stationary during battles, the Cryptic Cryptid appears to be an extremely blurry version of the Bigfoot/Yeti. As it turns out, it genuinely looks blurry to the naked eye. Mona, who runs the Monster Compendium, is not impressed.
Mona's Notes: Is this really the best picture we could get?
Claire's Notes: That's just what it looks like.
Mona's Addendum: Please stop tainting this Bestiary with lies.
Web Animations
- Minilife TV: In "Trouble Ian Paradise", when Chris grows suspicious of Ian hiding his position as the mayor of Minilife, he confronts Ian and tries to make him explain the photos of his mayoral duties Archie took. After Archie cycles through all the photos of the gang and his vacation slides, Chris berates him for all his evidence photos being too blurry to tell if Ian is even in them.
- Strong Bad Email: In Sbemail #145, "Myths & Legends", the "Bear Holding a Shark" cardboard cutout is treated as a Bigfoot-esque cryptid inhabiting Strongbadia. Strong Bad discusses the evolution of the myth and one "Bear Holding a Shark Skeptic" (Strong Sad) before revealing that the creature got "the break all made-up creatures dream of: blurry photographic evidence." The next section has the alleged witness (Homestar) describe his encounter before introducing his personal footage of the Bear Holding a Shark, an old-timey film clip with blurry, shaky imagery in the style of the Patterson-Gimlin film. It's subtly implied that the footage is blurry to disguise that it's a hoax, as the supposed "Bear Holding a Shark" is animated with a gait suspiciously similar to Homestar's.
Web Comics
- El Goonish Shive: In "New and Old Flames", Elliott discovers his Cheerleadra superhero form. He first uses it impulsively to fight a fire elemental outside a comic book store. Due to him not being used to this spell yet, he looks a lot like his Opposite-Sex Clone Ellen. When he finds out he has been filmed, he's horrified that people might recognize his Cheerleadra form as Ellen. However, Tedd and Grace point out that he was moving too fast, and the fire elemental caused too much of a lighting contrast so Cheerleadra's face was unrecognizable. A few days later, Cheerleadra fights a dragon and is knocked out by a fireball. When Noah (sorry ... The Mysterious Cloaked Figure) jumps in to save her, he uses some kind of magic that causes all video recording of him to become glitchy. As a disguised Elliott remarks, "That's some hardcore identity protection."
Western Animation
- American Dragon: Jake Long: Inverted when Jake tries to sell photos of his own dragon form to Professor Rotwood, which get dismissed as fakes because they're too clear (and he's clearly posing in them).
- Futurama:
- Lampshaded in "Spanish Fry" during an information video about Bigfoot. According to the narrator, Bigfoot likes to reside "Just behind rocks, in thick fogs and out-of-focus areas".
- Parodied on "Roswell That Ends Well". Among the people present at the unveiling of the spaceship found at Roswell (actually Bender's parts strewn about after the Planet Express crashed) is a crazy old man who takes bad pictures that resemble famous out-of-focus photographs of paranormal phenomena. A picture of President Truman resembles the Phoenix lights, and a photo of the PE ship resembles the "surgeon's photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster.
- Gravity Falls: Double-subverted in "The Land Before Swine"; Dipper and Soos are trying to get a photo of the creature that's recently been terrorizing the woods around Gravity Falls, and using a camera trap, Dipper manages to get three photos. Unfortunately, while developing the film, one camera missed the creature completely, the other just got an indistinct snapshot of a wing...but the third got a complete shot of the creature. And then Soos bursts into the dark room, exposing the developing photo to light and ruining the whole thing.
- In the first episode of My Adventures with Superman, Clark uses his powers to save Jimmy and Lois from some giant robots with only a hoodie pulled up as a diguise. Jimmy manages to get a photo of him in flight, but fortunately for Clark's identity it comes out far too blurry to identify him. Given what's later revealed about Jimmy, this almost certainly wasn't an accident.
- The Simpsons: In the episode "The Springfield Files" when Homer sent in a video to the news of a mysterious alien that appears in the woods every Friday night, Kent Brockman dismisses the three-second clip as Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind.