History Main / ConvenientPhotograph

* ''Literature/SolarPons'': In "The Adventure of the Perplexed Photographer", a photographer taking photos of the facade of a mansion for a real estate agent happens to catch the murderer standing at the window. [[spoiler:The lace curtains make the figure unidentifiable, but Pons is able to use the photo's existence--and that the killer does not know whatt it shows--in BluffingTheMurderer into confessing.]]

* ''LastSentinel2023''. The photo Cassidy keeps looking at is assumed to be her family back home, Cassidy tells Sully that the person who looks like her is actually her mother; it's a photo of her parents and brother who were killed during the war. [[spoiler:It's also a CoverIdentityAnomaly when Sully realises it's raining in the photo, when all he remembers from his childhood is the [[GlobalWarming constant heat from the lack of rain]]. That's because Cassidy grew up on the enemy continent.]]

* Film/TheOldGuard try their best to avoid this, since the proliferation of cameras makes it harder for them to remain undetected.

* One case in the ''Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'' series has a friend of Encyclopedia's trying to win a local photo contest. The contest instead is won by another contender who snapped a picture of his sister lighting a candle at night in their apartment, but also just happened to catch through the apartment window the image of a woman who lived above them falling from her balcony. ([[spoiler:In the solution to the case, Encyclopedia knows the photo is a fake because the apartment window would've reflected the flash of the camera, preventing anything outside the window from being seen, which makes this example something of an aversion.]])

* ''Series/TheKilling'':
** Subverted by the picture of Rosie and Richmond. It's discussed a lot and thrusts Richmond into most people's suspicions, but it really is completely innocent.
** Played straight by a picture that Linden finds in a victim's house in Season 4. It shows her in a picture with the Pied Piper, a.k.a. [[spoiler:Linden's ex and now-superior Skinner]].

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': The way that [[GreatDetective Akechi]] [[spoiler:discovered who the Phantom Thieves were was by taking pictures of them in the middle of escaping Okumura's Palace]]. He later [[spoiler:used this evidence to force them into helping him change Sae Niijima's heart, threatening to hand the pictures over to the police]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' short "Tom's Photo Finish", Tom is almost caught raiding the fridge, but quickly incriminates Spike and gets the dog kicked out. Jerry, however, has taken a photo of Tom caught in the act and has distributed copies all over the house, and Tom races to destroy all the incriminating photographs before his owners find out.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleRascals'' second-season short "Horse Sense", Alfalfa uses a photograph that Buckwheat had taken of the racehorse's owner to make the horse go faster in a race against Waldo's horse.

* ''Film/{{Witness}}'': Samuel would have had no clue who McFee was, how to identify him, and nobody else would have ever known that [[TheBadGuysAreCops the police are involved]] if there wasn't a photograph of him on the noticeboard of the police station in his plain view.

* ''Literature/DanielHawthorneNovels'': Apparently subverted before being played straight in ''The Word Is Murder''. Horowitz is suspicious of Amanda Leigh from RADA and Grace Lovell's father and goes there to track down the photographs of the final performance of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' (where both were in attendance). He's surprised to identify [[spoiler:the funeral director]] as Dan, one of the other students, which is how he figures out the murderer.

* One case in the ''Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'' series has a friend of Encyclopedia's trying to win a local photo contest. The contest instead is won by another contender who snapped a picture of his sister lighting a candle at night in their apartment, but also just happened to catch through the apartment window the image of a woman who lived above them falling from her balcony. ([[spoiler: In the solution to the case, Encyclopedia knows the photo is a fake because the apartment window would've reflected the flash of the camera, preventing anything outside the from being seen, which makes this example something of an aversion.]])

* In one episode of ''Series/JoanOfArcadia'', God tasks Joan with helping a nerd with his campaign for school president. When another candidate, a BigManOnCampus and JerkJock, reveals that the nerd's father is currently in prison, Joan decides to dig up some dirt on him in retaliation. She and her friend Judith grab a camera and tail the athlete to the football field, where he heads for another guy who's a notorious drug dealer. They're ready to catch him on film--but things take a turn when the two boys [[StraightGay start kissing instead]], and Judith takes a picture in shock. Joan is then faced with the moral dilemma of exposing the jock's secret and destroying his reputation or not using the photo, which would make the nerd lose.

The murder of 10-year-old girl Engla Höglund in Sweden in 2008 was solved after a photographer, testing out his new digital camera, took a photo of Engla riding her bicycle and a photo of a car following her. The driver of the car was identified as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Eklund_(murderer) Anders Eklund]], who was arrested and interrogated, leading to him confessing to the murder (he also confessed to another murder eight years earlier after DNA found at the crime scene was matched with him).

[[folder:FanFiction]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

* ''Literature/DanielHawthorneNovels'': Apparently subverted before being played straight in ''The Word Is Murder''. Horowitz is suspicious of Amanda Leigh from [=RADA=] and Grace Lovell's father and goes there to track down the photographs of the final performance of ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' (where both were in attendance). He's surprised to identify [[spoiler:the funeral director]] as Dan, one of the other students, which is how he figures out the murderer.

* ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy'': In ''The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'', and [[Film/TheGirlWithTheDragonTattoo2011 the adaptations]], Mikael manages to find a photograph of Harriet taken at the Children's Day parade. He then just so happens to find someone with a camera on the other side of the street who just so happened to keep the photograph that showed who she saw.

* In Creator/DickFrancis's novel ''Reflex'', the protagonist finds a trove of "ruined" photographs and negatives in the house of a recently-murdered master photographer. The photographs turn out to be skillfully-hidden blackmail materials, photos taken at various times and places that happen to show illegal activities by several different people.

* In the Literature/NeroWolfe novel ''Literature/WhereTheresAWill'', Wolfe notices a detail in a photo taken by Sara that leads him to the identity of the murderer.

* ''Series/NewTricks'': In "The Wolf of Wallbrook", UCOS reopen the case of 32-year old Charlie Hayes, a stock market trader, who fell to his death, a presumed suicide, from his office building near Tower Bridge in 1989 when a blow up photograph in a retrospective art exhibition reveals a background figure who pushed him.

** Played straight by a picture that Linden finds in a victim's house in Season 4. It shows her in a picture with the Pied Piper - aka [[spoiler:Linden's ex and now-superior Skinner.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Scratches}}'', the Blackwoods' maid, Eva Mariani caught James Blackwood burying the body of his dead wife Catherine, and gave a photo of it to the police who arrested James for murder. Late in the game, the player can also find this photo to locate Catherine Blackwood's grave.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' short "Tom's Photo Finish", Tom is almost caught raiding the fridge, but quickly incriminates Spike and gets the dog kicked out. Jerry, however, has taken a photo of Tom caught in the act, and has distributed copies all over the house. HilarityEnsues as Tom races to destroy all the incriminating photographs before his owners find out.

** In "Jeepers, It's the Creeper," the gang is driving when they discovered an injured bank guard lying near his truck, which was attacked by the titular villain, a green ghoul. He hands the kids a blank sheet of paper and mutters, "The flame will tell..." before passing out. At the episode's end, it's revealed that the guard caught the bank's president on camera robbing his own cash supply; the supposedly blank paper is the photographic proof, and needs to be exposed to an open fire to be developed.

[[/folder]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/Zootopia'' the last photo sighting of Emmit Otterton is one where he happens to be eating a popsicle, which Judy recognises as the kind sold by conman (confox?) Nick Wilde. Sure enough, when she looks closer, she sees that Nick is partially in the photo too, giving Judy her first lead.

** The photograph that David finds of Vick [[spoiler:also has her beside [[FrameUp the guy she frames]], which is how he figures out her involvement.]]