Crasher Squirrel is the name given to a squirrel seen in a photograph originally intended to be a self-portrait of a Minnesota couple; it can also refer to the resulting internet meme.
Crasher Squirrel is the name given to a squirrel seen in a photograph originally intended to be a self-portrait of a Minnesota couple; it can also refer to the resulting internet meme.
The photograph was taken by Melissa Brandts and her husband Jackson while visiting Lake Minnewanka at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, in May 2009. While the couple were posing on some rocks next to the lake using a camera with a wireless remote shutter release to take photos of themselves, a golden-mantled ground squirrel [1] began exploring the area. The squirrel stood up right in front of the lens, and the Brandts were able to capture the image of the squirrel, clearly in focus, in front of the camera. [1]
In August 2009, the Brandts submitted the photo to the National Geographic weekly "Your Shot" contest in a bid to have the image included in an upcoming issue. [2] Through this appearance, the photograph spread virally across worldwide newspapers [3] and the Internet, popularized by sites such as Cute Overload. [4]
The appeal of the picture is related to both the fact that the squirrel is perfectly in focus, and that its pose is reminiscent of the gopher from Caddyshack , with "paws held at chest level, eyes staring dead at the camera", according to Mike Celizic of The Today Show . [3] While some questions of the photo's authenticity were raised by Matt Lauer, the Brandts were able to demonstrate that the single photo was legitimate and part of a whole set of photos that they had taken during that time period. [3]
The photo of the squirrel has since been used by the Banff tourism board to attract visitors to the area. [1] The Park saw a brief surge in visitors shortly following the viral spread of the image, [1] and the board set up "Banff National Park Squirrel" Twitter and Facebook pages, using the Columbian ground squirrel as an "ambassador" to Banff. [1] [5] The tourism board also contacted independent developers that created social media applications around the squirrel photo to include web links back to their web site. These actions led to an estimated 82 million impressions through various forms of media within a few weeks, according to the board. [6] The squirrel was made an honorary citizen of Banff in October 2009 by Banff Mayor John Stutz. [7] Melissa Brandts has also set up her own Facebook page for the squirrel. [8] In response to the popularity of the photo, National Geographic's November 2009 issue featured a "Your Shot" section devoted to readers' photos with animals, including the Brandts' photo. [9]
The insertion of squirrel images in other photos has furthered the meme, and has been used for photographs of official diplomatic gatherings, family portraits, and famous works of art so that the squirrel appears to be crashing these gatherings. [10] A website, "The Squirrelizer", was created by Graeme Hawker of Scotland to allow anyone to add the image of the squirrel to a photo; [8] the site saw more than 130,000 hits within a week of its creation. [11] The meme was considered one of the top memes in 2009 by MSNBC. [12] The Squirrelizer, formerly hosted at lutralutra.co.uk, has been taken down as of 2010; there is, however, a Squirrelizer iPhone app.
Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, 110–180 kilometres (68–112 mi) west of Calgary, Banff encompasses 6,641 square kilometres (2,564 sq mi) of mountainous terrain, with many glaciers and ice fields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. Provincial forests and Yoho National Park are neighbours to the west, while Kootenay National Park is located to the south and Kananaskis Country to the southeast. The main commercial centre of the park is the town of Banff, in the Bow River valley.
The Americans is a photographic book by Robert Frank which was highly influential in post-war American photography. It was first published in France in 1958, and the following year in the United States. The photographs were notable for their distanced view of both high and low strata of American society. The book as a whole created a complicated portrait of the period that was viewed as skeptical of contemporary values and evocative of ubiquitous loneliness. "Frank set out with his Guggenheim Grant to do something new and unconstrained by commercial diktats" and made "a now classic photography book in the iconoclastic spirit of the Beats".
Mathew B. Brady was an American photographer. Known as one of the earliest and most famous photographers in American history, he is best known for his scenes of the Civil War. He studied under inventor Samuel Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America. Brady opened his own studio in New York City in 1844, and went on to photograph U.S. presidents John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Van Buren, among other public figures.
Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. The photograph, taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. While the portrait's subject initially remained unknown, she was identified by early 2002: Gula, an ethnic Pashtun from Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, was a 12-year-old child residing in Pakistan's Nasir Bagh.
Bill Brandt was a British photographer and photojournalist. Born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British society for such magazines as Lilliput and Picture Post; later he made distorted nudes, portraits of famous artists and landscapes. He is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the 20th century.
Moraine Lake is a glacially fed lake in Banff National Park, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) outside the hamlet of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. It is situated in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, at an elevation of approximately 1,884 metres (6,181 ft). The lake has a surface area of 50 hectares.
The "tourist guy" was an internet phenomenon that featured a photograph of a tourist on the observation deck of the World Trade Center digitally altered to show a plane about to hit the tower in the background during the September 11 attacks. The photo went viral in the days after the attacks as many manipulated pictures spread online. The man in the photograph was identified as Hungarian Péter Guzli, who took the photo in 1997. Guzli said he edited the photo as a joke for his friends and did not intend for it to spread across the internet.
The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: The first is camera obscura image projection, the second is the discovery that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive materials prior to the 18th century.
Wedding photography is a specialty in photography that is primarily focused on the photography of events and activities relating to weddings. It may include other types of portrait photography of the couple before the official wedding day, such as a pre-wedding engagement session. On the wedding day, the photographer(s) will provide portrait photography as well as documentary photography to document the different wedding events and rituals throughout the day(s).
The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA. The mission was conceived as a low-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the polar regions of the Moon. Launched immediately after discovery of lunar water by Chandrayaan-1, the main LCROSS mission objective was to further explore the presence of water in the form of ice in a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar polar region. It was successful in confirming water in the southern lunar crater Cabeus.
Nature photography is a wide range of photography taken outdoors and devoted to displaying natural elements such as landscapes, wildlife, plants, and close-ups of natural scenes and textures. Nature photography tends to put a stronger emphasis on the aesthetic value of the photo than other photography genres, such as photojournalism and documentary photography.
The Bow Range is a mountain range of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. The range is named in association with the Bow River and was officially adopted on March 31, 1917 by the Geographic Board of Canada.
David Burnett is an American magazine photojournalist based in Washington, D.C. His work from the 1979 Iranian revolution was published extensively in Time.
Stephen Alvarez is an American photojournalist. He is founder and president of the Ancient Art Archive, a global initiative to record, preserve, and share high-resolution images of ancient artwork. Throughout his career, he has produced global stories about exploration and culture. He became a National Geographic photographer in 1995. His pictures have won awards in Pictures of the Year International and Communications Arts and have been exhibited at Visa Pour L’Image International Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan, France.
Peter Joseph Souza is an American photojournalist, the former chief official White House photographer for Presidents of the United States Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama and the former director of the White House Photography Office. He was a photographer with The Chicago Tribune, stationed at the Washington, D.C., bureau from 1998 to 2007; during this period, he also followed the rise of then-Senator Obama to the presidency.
On November 24, 2009, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, a married couple from Virginia, and Carlos Allen, attended a White House state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as uninvited guests. The Salahis and Allen arrived separately and did not appear to have colluded in their efforts. They were able to pass through two security checkpoints, enter the White House complex, and meet President Barack Obama. The incident resulted in security investigations and legal inquiries.
Nick Brandt is an English photographer. Brandt's work generally focuses on the rapidly disappearing natural world, as a result of environmental destruction, climate change and humans' actions.
A selfie is a self-portrait photograph or a short video, typically taken with an electronic camera or smartphone. The camera would be usually held at arm's length or supported by a selfie stick instead of being controlled with a self-timer or remote. The concept of shooting oneself while viewing their own image in the camera's LCD monitor is also known as self-recording.
Photographs have been taken in the area now known as Canada since 1839, by both amateurs and professionals. In the 19th century, commercial photography focussed on portraiture. But professional photographers were also involved in political and anthropological projects: they were brought along on expeditions to Western Canada and were engaged to document Indigenous peoples in Canada by government agencies.