Back Page - The Lurker - Page Two

Here is a category of found photograph sought by collectors.

It is called "The Lurker."

They are fairly ordinary pictures except there is always at least one person in the background or off to one side caught in the frame. They are often aware of the picture being taken but often unaware that they are in it.

Here are a few examples. See if you can spot the lurker in each snap.

New Additions

Added December 5, 2015

A lurker just a bit different.

This one has a shadow AND a lurker.

This is a hard one

Can't get enough? There are other Lurkers...well,...lurking on previous pages.
Back Page - The Lurker - Page One
Back Page - The Lurker - Page Two (This One)

Go back to THE MAIN INDEX PAGE

There are now more than 4,000 photographs in the Lost Gallery.
Or try out the NEW BACK PAGE INDEX

The most popular photographs An album of the most requested photographs in the Lost Gallery.

Area 51 and a Half You are probably not authorized to see these.

Don't take my picture! Oh! You DID didn't you! This is a collection of photographs that disappear on the way home from the photo processing shop.

And don't miss
Cabinet Card Gallery
One Man's Treasure
Penny Tales
Square America
Tattered and Lost
Vernacular Photography
The best
FOUND PHOTOGRAPH
sites on the web.

And for postcards try
THE DAILY POSTCARD.
POSTCARDY

All images are the property of Lost Gallery and the author. Permission must be granted for their use. All rights reserved.

THE KIDS It is always a mystery how a photograph of any of these precious children could end up lost or abandoned. Here are a few. You will probably say "Ooh..." at least once.

Dee and the Business School
The beautiful Dee. A curious story; What do you see?

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

"What are they doing?"

Sepia Saturday - Lurking

For this Sepia Saturday Suggestion we have a snapshot that could take us in several directions at once.

It looks like Robert Kennedy pitching pennies with the boys out in the dirt yard in front of a lovely, depression-era, bungalow style home. That's all rather harmless but if they continue working on that bottle out there in the hot sun they will eventually be trying to change the shape of the aurora borealis by flapping bed sheets in the back yard.



Now some of the things suggested here were looked at before in the Sepia Saturday series. We have collected People In Doorways and had a glance at (possible) Famous People and Events both in March of last year.

We already looked at some people with a drink in their hand (like the one just below) on a Sepia Saturday page called
"On Top of Things"

Today for Sepia Saturday lets look at some photographs where the "lurker" becomes the unintended feature of the snap.

Now the "Lurker" category has been defined in photograph collection circles in various ways. It seems to stretch from photographs that include people who were accidentally caught in the snap, to photographs that include people who deliberately slipped into the frame unbeknownst to the intended subject or the photographer.

So we find lurkers to be a varied breed.

Here, a bunch of the boys include themselves in a guy's portrait that he probably intended to send to his girl. Note that the photographer managed to include a bit of himself also.

In this one, the rest of the family awaits in the wings for their chance in the picture. The photographer included them anyway.

It may take you a minute to find the lurker in this frame. He won't be in the picture with the girls but he is in this one.

Here is a parent trying NOT to be a lurker but is anyway.

Findley vowed that someday he too would get a new dress and get his picture taken.

In this snap, Gladys obviously did not want to be included so she got up out of her chair and slipped around the corner of the house. Then, maybe she changed her mind a little bit.

They didn't want us in the picture so let's just sit here in the swing and keep cool.

It's hard to decide if that's a lurker back there behind the tree or not. Let's say it is.

I don't think that guy in the doorway intended to get into the picture at all.

We didn't know we were poor.

I doubt that kid back there even realized he was in the picture.

This must have been quite an event. There are spectators in the windows and doorways.

While we are on the subject, let's differentiate between an ordinary lurker and a photobomber. A photobomber is someone doing something to spoil or augment the snapshot.

Now of course that disturbance can be done by one of the intended subjects of the photograph or by someone who just slips into the frame as a joke. So there is a gray area where a lurker can really be called a photobomber too. But, certainly the photobomber intended to be there.

Here is a LOST GALLERY page of photographs featuring
real photobombers.

This is one of my favorites. Just look at it and let it tell you its own story. It is perhaps a long one and a particularly sad one.

Now slip on back to the
Sepia Saturday home page
and see what else is lurking there.

Can't get enough?
LOST GALLERY has lots of LURKERS!
Here is PAGE ONE!

Or maybe you'd prefer just a list of all (well, most) of the categories and subjects and album pages in LOST GALLERY! Well, here it is!

A to C

Advance to the Rear The Rear View
Aircraft
Aircraft – Biplanes
Aircraft – Connie, the Lockheed Constellation
Aliens and Mystery – Area Fifty-One and a Half
Animals – Gone to the Chickens
Animals – The Pets by themselves
Animals – Posing on a Pony
Area Fifty-One and a Half – Don’t Look Now
Automobiles – Car Bumpers
Automobiles – Car Running Boards
Baby Buggy
Beach – Itinerant Beach Photographer (page 01)
Beach – Itinerant Beach Photographer (page 02)
Beach – The Old Days
Beach – The Slide Show
Beach – The Girlfriend
Biplane
Bows
Boys in Dresses
Bridges
Bumpers – Car Bumpers
Cabinet Cards
Camera – Photographs containing a camera
Carte-de-Viste
C'est la Guerre – Photographs about the wars
Chain Chain Chain – People doing the same things
Chair, Fringed
Chair, One Armed
Cheesecake
Chickens - Gone to the Chickens
Children – Boys in Dresses
Children – A Child on the Front Steps
Children - Girls and their Dolls
Children – Kid in a Tub
Children – Mobile Toys
Children - On Running Boards
Children – Slide Show
Children – Trios - In groups of Three
Christmas – in found photographs
Cities – Unknown Street Scenes
Class Pictures – School Days!
Clothing – Bows
Clothing – Costumes
Clothing – Cowboy Outfits
Clothing – Boys in Dresses
Clothing – Furs – The Dead Animal Society
Clothing – Grass Skirts
Clothing – Hats
Clothing – Jodhpurs
Clothing – Saddle Shoes
Clothing – Sailor Tailored Fashion
Clothing – Swimwear – At the Beach
Clothing – Uniforms – Girl & her Guy in Uniform
Clothing – Uniforms - Our Man at the Front
Connie, the Lockheed Constellation
Costumes
Couples – A Girl and her Guy in Uniform
Fake Fight

C to P

Fringed Chair
Furniture and Props – One Armed Chair
Furniture and Props – Props and Backdrops
Furniture and Props – The Fringed Chair
Furniture and Props – Wicker
Girl in a Boat
Girlfriend and the Car
Girlfriend at the beach
Goat Cart
Gone to the Chickens – Snaps including a chicken
Grass Skirt Gallery
Groups – Chain Chain Chain – People lined up
Groups – Class Pictures
Hats – Where everyone is wearing a hat
Hats – Really Big hats
Homes – We Call it Home
House – Our House
Itinerant Street Photographer
Itinerant Child Photographer With PONY!
Jodhpurs
Laundry – People and Clothes Lines
Lurker
Music – Trombones
Music Makers
Novelty Photo Booth – Collection
Novelty Photo Booth – Examination
The Office Typewriters and business
On a Bumper
On a Car
On a Rock
On a Running Board
One-Armed Chair
Parade – Parties, Parades and Picnics
Parties – Parties, Parades and Picnics
People Stacks
Personal Pinups – the best girl. (Page One)
Personal Pinups – the best girl. (Page Two)
Personal Pinups – Girlfriend at the beach
Pets – The animals by themselves
Photo Mask
PhotoBombing – Pranks to ruin a photo
Photography – Photographs containing a camera
Photography – The Photo Mask
Photography – Tinted Photograph
Photography – Polaroids
Photography Errors – Lurker
Photography Errors – photographer's Shadow
Photography Errors – The Double Exposure
Photography Errors – Unauthorized Photographs
Picnics – Parties, Parades and Picnics
Places to Go - More about where than who.
Places – Our House - With people in front
Places – We Call it Home - More houses
Pony – Posing on a Pony

P to W

Poses – Advance to the Rear!
Poses - Belly Down, Heads Up! (A really odd pose.)
Poses – Cheesecake
Poses – Fake Fight
Poses – Girl in a Boat
Poses – In a Tree
Poses – Kid in a Tub
Poses – On a Bumper
Poses – On a Car
Poses – On a Pony
Poses – On a Running Board
Poses – Out Sitting on a Rock
Poses – People with Signs.
Poses – Personal Pinup
Poses – The Rear View
Poses – Sleeping people
Poses – Stacks of People People on People
Props and Backdrops
Rock – People out sitting on a rock
Running Boards - Automobiles
Running Boards with Children
Saddle Shoes
Sailor Tailored Clothing
Signs – People posing with signs.
Sleeping People
Sneaky Snaps–People not posing at all
Telephone - About telephones and operators
Things – Typewriter – A Modern Antique
Things – Telephones
Things – Watermelon in the picture
Tinted Photograph
Tintypes
Toys – Children and their Mobile Toys
Toys - Girls and their Dolls
Transportation – Aircraft
Transportation – Automobile Bumpers
Transportation – Automobile Running Boards
Transportation – Baby Buggy
Transportation – Biplanes
Transportation – Lockheed Constellation
Transportation – Wheelbarrow
Tree Thing
Trombones!
Types of Photographs – Cabinet Cards
Types of Photographs – CDV (Carte-de Viste)
Types of Photographs – Photobooth
Types of Photographs – Polaroids
Types of Photographs – Tintypes
Typewriter – A Modern Antique
Unauthorized Photographs – Sneaky snaps
Uniformed Man – Our Man at the Front
Vehicles – Biplane
Vehicles – Lockheed Constellation
Vehicles – Wheelbarrow
Washday Blues – Of Love and Laundry
Watermelon
Wheelbarrow
Wicker Chairs
Wicker Furniture
World War One