Photo Humour

There is some very subtle humour going on in this monochromatic striped photograph - blink and you’ve probably missed it. It’s so cleverly assembled that I can’t tell if the man is mimicking the flag or if the skull and crossbones was included to complete your funny narrative. However you arrived at your photograph its certainly well-patched together. Your Jolly Roger photo had me Captain Hooked as soon as I saw it - I’ll definitely keep an eye out for your future entries.

You’re having a giraffe (Cockney rhyming slang for laugh). This is a well-spotted, funny, opportunistic photograph. It looks as if the window frame is hanging off the animal’s neck. The illusion is enhanced by the two extended plaster streaks on the wall which could be mistaken for a painting of the giraffe’s legs. Capturing the straight-faced expression starring out of the frame shows that the giraffe is completely unaware that he’s up to his neck in stand-up humour.

I’ve got to hand it to you this is a macabre but very funny photograph. Using a composite of the circular saw and the severed hand to tell your horror story is a bit or (h)armless fun. The attention to detail makes the narrative extremely believable and I love the additional note left on the blood-splattered surface. This is so realistically achieved, I was ready to believe that it was comically staged by the museum rather than by you in post-production. Your entry is certainly a cut above the wrist of many other entries.

I get the drill! You dream up a scenario, find a willing subject, choose a few appropriate props, put yourself in the frame and hey presto - you have a winning photograph. I love the old-fashione hand drill and the swimming goggles substituted for the dentist’s implement and the patient’s protective eyewear. The side-on view could also be interpreted as a priest drastically administering the Holy Eucharist to one of his parishioners. The addition of the fake university certificate filling the void on the wall is a nice touch. It wasn’t Chicago drill music that sprung to my mind when I laughed at your entry but the song ‘24 Hours From Tulsa’ by Gene (Tooth) Pickney.

This is hilarious. Who would have thought that five wetsuits hung out to dry on a sea wall could be so funny. You did well to spot and compose your shot around this seaside delusion. At first glance it looks as if they’re swimmers leaning over the barricade or maybe, as you suggest, they’re members of a swim and slim club who have been so successful that they’ve slipped out of their rubber suits. Your dry sense of humour certainly means you can’t be accused of being wet behind the ears.

Funny photos can be as much about the photo title as they are about the photo. There could be many interpretations to your entry but I like your title suggesting that your lurcher (clutching an oversized orange thing in its mouth) looks if the enflamed lips are due to a seriously bad bout of Botox. You’ve used a low aperture to lose the background detail and a high ISO to freeze the action ensuring that all the attention is focused on your pet and his disastrous cosmetic surgery. I hope you awarded him for his lip service with a lip-smacking morsel.

In the right hands even watching a boring afternoon’s game of cricket can reap a humorous photographic moment. The cowering boundary spectators have moved in unison convinced that the fast travelling cricket ball will hit them. Your funny take is so perfect that at first I thought it might have been staged. Nothing wrong with that but I can see by your camera settings and use of zoom lens that this is an authentically captured shot taken from 300 metres away. Like the cricket outfielder you caught your shot in the nick of time proving there’s nothing silly mid off about you.

A day at the races turned out to be a lucky one for you and your camera. The punter’s reaction as he’s taken by surprise by the sudden movement of the living statue is priceless. You cleverly position yourself up close with your nifty-fifty lens in anticipation that something like this would eventually happen. I’ll wager the photo result was your best bet of the day.

Having chosen the innocent toddler’s beach photo in my top ten I just had to commend your adult version. These could be the same two grown up cherubs photographed on the same beach some seventy years later. The boy has grown up to be a fully-fledged nudist whilst the girl has remained demure by avoiding eye contact. What would have been really funny was if you’d stuck a white censorship label over the offensive, male member - the bulging belly that is!