Photo Montage

Just... ignore the second photo.

"What a great photograph! It will always bring back the fondest of memories..."

— EarthBound (1994)

Like flipping through your grandmother's scrapbooks. Only with catchier music.

A Photo Montage is usually an ending or credits montage, but it can show up in other odd places. In a photo montage, a series of photographs are shown in some fashion—they may be "flashed" at the screen one-by-one, tacked on a wall, in a photo album—that depict the main characters. However, in order to be a "true" photo montage, they must explicitly be photographs—random still images just won't cut it. Sometimes, the photographs will depict events from the course of the TV show, movie, or video game they come from—bonus points if, re-watching whatever-it-is, you can spot the places where they might've been "taken". Other times, the montage will show events implied to have happened after the ending, in a kind of poor man's "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. When photo montages are used in an opening, they can help establish the relationships between the characters and their history, depending on the people or things depicted.

The appeal of the Photo Montage is its relative ease—putting one together doesn't require a lot of expensive animation or film. Just a few good still images, and one long, panning shot. It can also be used if it's thematically relevant—if a character in a movie, TV show, or game is a photographer, it becomes increasingly likely that a Photo Montage will appear somewhere in the production, to show off his "handiwork." If this is the main character, the chance of encountering this trope approaches 1.

If the camera slowly pans across or zooms into a photo (or both at once), it becomes The Ken Burns Effect.

Super-Trope to Mugshot Montage and Photobooth Montage.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The ending sequence to Super Dimension Fortress Macross has an off-screen character flipping through a photo album. The photo album and the hand turning the page are live-action, but the photos in it are cartoons.
• The third ending sequence to Gintama is a photo montage of school life in the Class Three, Ginpachi-sensei verse.
• Later episodes of Full Metal Panic!! do this in the credits, both showing pictures of Kaname as a child and Kaname and Sousuke with their classmates. Some, but not all of the photos are from scenes seen in the show. Kaname's friend is also an amateur photographer, so it's implied at least some of the pictures were taken by her.
• For the end of one season of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the ending credits are accompanied by a montage that is essentially nothing but photos of the gang changing from one to the other in a slow succession.
• The final chapter of Fullmetal Alchemist ends with one of these, with Pinako Rockbell's photo wall revealing what happened to the various main characters later on. Brotherhood ends with one as well.
• Episode 7 of the Hellsing OVA has a sequence of photos of one of the characters who died during the episode, although some are also implied to be the character's memories.
• Used Tear Jerkingly in Code Geass, as Lelouch removes Shirley's memories of him due to her being in both pain and danger from the knowledge they have. It doesn't help that all the while Masquerade is playing. To some, this scene is worse than Shirley's death
• Tiger & Bunny:
  • Kotetsu's daughter Kaede and late wife Tomoe are first introduced by way of a long string of framed photographs in his apartment.
  • Another photo montage appears in the second opening theme, where Kaede^note her identity has been officially confirmed flips through the pictures on Kotetsu's iPhone; this includes shots of all the heroes, Kaede, Tomoe and Agnes. When she comes across a picture of Barnaby, someone else (most likely Kotetsu) takes the phone away from her.
• Night Raid 1931's ending credits is composed of displaying four pictures framed on walls one by one in slow motion; the first is a shot of a railway track, the second is Kazura's graduation photograph from the military school, the third is a group photograph of Yukina, Isao, Towa (Isao's fiancee) and Natsume and the fourth is a photograph of Aoi and Shizune in wedding attire.

Comic Books

• Maggie and Kate's apartment in Bombshells features a photo wall with various pictures of their lives. Examples include Maggie's police academy graduation, Kate competing in a boxing match, the two of them on a Ferris wheel in Chicago, and Kate fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Fan Works

• The end of Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Movie has one of these with farcical Where Are They Now Epilogues for the main characters. By the way, Yami will return in "For Your Cards Only".

Films — Animation

• In The Chipmunk Adventure during the song "We're Off To See The World" which serves as a Travel Montage, we see a series of photos of The Chippettes at different destinations including Rome, Paris and London.
• The credits of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time uses a variation of this trope by having characters appear in paintings hanging on the castle walls.
• The opening of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the feature-length Wallace & Gromit movie, features the camera panning over a bunch of framed photos on the wall of the duo over the years.
• The credit sequence for Home (2015) includes an epilogue montage of Oh and Tip and their friends and family. In one of the photos, Oh and Tip are reading a book with an illegible title but the distinctive cover design of The True Meaning of Smekday, the book on which the film was based.
• Lilo & Stitch:
  • The end has a "pictures on the wall"-style Photo Montage, showing off what all the characters do after the end of the movie. There's several Shout Outs in the pictures, including to a famous Norman Rockwell painting.
  • Its sequel has a quick montage of instant film photos taken by Stitch of Lilo punching up Mertle, including a selfie of him smiling for the scene, all of which "Kumu" Moses shows to Nani afterwards.
• Migration: The credits feature a number of photos (in 2D style) of the Mallards as they help the penguins return to the South Pole.
• The page image comes from Robots, where at one point on the Crosstown Express, Rodney and Fender go into a tunnel and several strange pictures of them appear onscreen briefly before they exit the tunnel.
• Happens in Toy Story 2 as Al is snapping pics of Woody and the Roundup Gang for Mr. Konishi.
• In Turning Red, the opening shots are this featuring Mei, her mother, and father.
• The ending of Up is entirely in scrapbook format. Said scrapbook has actually been a key plot point for most of the movie. The credits are presumably what gets put in it after the end.

Films — Live-Action

• Both the opening and closing credits from The Parent Trap features photographs; of the parent's first and second marriages, respectively.
• The ending credits to the short film "Thumbtanic" follows (via photographs) the adventures of a guy who stole and pawned the old woman's necklace (which was apparently a Memento MacGuffin in Titanic (1997)).
• The opening credits of Sahara use a variant, with the camera zooming in on pictures, newspaper cuttings and the odd memento in Dirk Pitt's Trophy Room. It's a sort of Establishing Character Moment, and full of Shout-Outs to the Dirk Pitt Adventures.
• The ending credits of Rain Man are the pictures taken by Dustin Hoffman's character through their journey.
• In Time Bandits, the character Kevin regularly took pictures of things using his camera. The end credits (starting around 3:10 on this YouTube clip) have a Photo Montage of somewhat distorted pictures that could have been taken by Kevin.
• In the Australian film Look Both Ways (2005), photo montages are used to show the thoughts of Nick (a photographer), just as animation is used to show the thoughts of Meryl (a painter).
• The end credits for Lethal Weapon 4, showing first the life of the characters after the end of the movie and then, when the credits start mentioning the crew, pictures of said crew.
• The credits for Amélie feature Nino's carefully compiled photo album, now with pictures of all the film's characters added.
• Bullshot ends with The Hero and the Damsel in Distress getting married, as shown by a series of wedding photos, with the last photo showing the scowling villain disguised as their chauffeur.
• The Hangover ends with the main characters discovering that they took pictures of what they did the night of their amnesiac drug stupor on a cellphone, and decide to go through them quick and then delete them. The explicit photos are shown to he viewer during the credits.
• Red Dawn (1984) ends with B&W photographs of the Wolverines, all but two of whom where killed, adding to the 'historical' nature of the final narration (which takes place after the war).
• The Blind Side has pictures of the real-life Michael Oher and the Tuohy family, including the only known photo of him as a kid.
• Stuck on You has a filmclip montage of every single member of the cast and crew.
• The title sequence for Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) shows a series of photos portraying the various central characters growing up together, mixed in with car racing trophies, car parts, etc.
• Raise the Titanic! opens with a montage of black and white photographs of the Titanic.
• The journey across Romania in Im Juli is portrayed entirely through still shots — not by choice, but because the Romanian government denied their shooting permit.
• The end credits for Saving Mr. Banks use real photos of Walt Disney and P. L. Travers taken during the production and premiere of Mary Poppins.
• The end of 200 Cigarettes has Dave Chappelle doing a voiceover as the viewer sees a series of Polaroids from the Martha Plimpton's character's New Years Eve party, which the cast of characters has spent the duration of movie trying to get to
• The opening credits of Bulworth show the title character watching campaign sports for his re-election campaign (he's a senator), while behind him, we see photos of Bulworth with various political figures (which are actually pictures of the young Warren Beatty).
• Hop: Th film opens with a montage of paintings showing various Easter Bunnies throughout history, with Fred O'Hare narrating about what it takes to be one. The last painting shows Fred himself, "the first human Easter Bunny", and the film proceeds to explain showing how that came to be.
• Weird: The Al Yankovic Story parodies the use of this trope in biopics. The credits start with actual photos of the real "Weird Al" Yankovic... only to transition to blatantly poorly Photoshopped pictures of things like him meeting Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, getting drunk on stage, making out with Madonna in front of Dr. Demento, killing Pablo Escobar and his goons, getting gunned down at the awards show, and his funeral being led by President Reagan. All while soft piano and violin music plays.

Live-Action TV

• This is a favorite of Dom Com series. For example, the opening sequence of Still Standing shows photos on a refrigerator, showing how the characters "grew up" and came to be where they are in the show.
  • Family Ties and Growing Pains opened with photos, as well.
• All three series of Feasting on Asphalt use photo montages as pre-commercial eyecatches, as did the behind-the-scenes episode of Good Eats.
• All My Children opens with photos of the cast members, always ending with Susan Lucci.
• Tour of Duty, in its later seasons, had a group photograph of the characters, looking like a unit photo taken during The Vietnam War.
• The end credits for the Australian series Embassy had the faces of the cast appearing one by one in a passport.
• An episode of Cougar Town featured a Binge Montage made up of snapshots of the guys going on a rowdy night out.
• Cheers opened with a montage of pictures (paintings and photographs) depicting the title bar from decades earlier with theme song and all.
• The opening credits of the 1990s Britcom As Time Goes By features background video footage of various goings-on in Britain and the U.S. from the 1950s to the 1990s (earlier seasons ended with footage of John Major as PM while latter seasons ended with footage of Tony Blair as PM) while, in the foreground, two individual photo frames featuring photos of a young Jean (from the '50s) and a young Lionel (also from the '50s) change to show how they aged throughout the years.
• The opening credits of How I Met Your Mother is an in-universe version of this, showing a series of realistically overexposed, crooked, poorly-lit, crudely-posed, yellowing photos of the gang taking pictures of themselves while hanging out in MacLaren's Bar, opening with Lily taking a picture of herself in the bar mirror. Appropriate, as we can assume all the actual photographs in question are still in one of the gang's possession in the year 2030, where the series is framed.
• JAG and NCIS both have fairly standard end credit sequences with stills from the episode in question.

Theme Parks

• In The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal Studios, the Daily Bugle introductory video does this briefly to explain the company's early roots.

Video Games

• The ending credits of Sonic Unleashed. It's because Chip has a camera in the game.
• The ending credits of EarthBound (1994). There's a photographer who appears throughout the game to take your picture. The more places you find him in, the more photos you'll see. If you look all around, he'll end up chronicling your entire adventure in photographs.
• The ending of Pokémon Snap uses pictures taken by the player during the course of the game for its end credits Photo Montage. Hey, it's a game about taking pictures of stuff—what did you expect?
• The end credits of Beyond Good & Evil has a Photo Montage in its credits, but one that strangely doesn't use pictures taken by the player. Instead, it shows the main characters hanging out at the lighthouse and playing with the children.
• The ending of Super Mario Sunshine. It shows Mario, Peach, Toadsworth and the Toads finally having their vacation on Isle Delfino.
• Mega Man Star Force 3 also uses it on the credits. The first photo is particularly endearing.
• Asellus' "human ending" in SaGa Frontier shows a series of photos of living as she grows up. The photos go backwards starting from being a grandmother, to raising children, to her youth.
• The very last ending of The Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb has one.
• Fallout 3's ending. The pictures vary depending on the player's Karma Meter and what sidequests they completed.
• Used for heartbreaking effect at the end of The King of Fighters XIII's Story Mode: after Ash Crimson's Heroic Sacrifice, we see a photo montage of him in happier and not-so-happier times. Then we see a repeat... only that Ash is missing.
• The Life Is Strange series loves to do this:
  • In Life Is Strange, each time Chloe's power to travel to the past through a photo is used, it is accompanied by a montage of photographs, most of them changing or being destroyed as the effects of time travel take effect.
  • Life Is Strange: Before the Storm ends with a photo montage of Chloe and Rachel's subsequent life. Similarly, all of the Multiple Endings of Life Is Strange 2 feature a photo montage that documents what happens between Sean's decision at the border and the Distant Finale.

Visual Novels

• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney combines this with the regular Ace Attorney credits at the end.
• The party scene at the end of Daughter for Dessert consists mainly of this.

Web Animation

• The video to "Geeks in Love" by Lemon Demon prominently features an animated photo-montage board.
• Homestar Runner:
  • The Strong Bad Email "dangeresque 3" features one of these playing over the end credits of Dangeresque 1: Dangeresque, Too?
  • The email "montage" ends with one of these, after displaying several other types of montage.

Web Comics

• Stand Still, Stay Silent: The Time Skip that happens between the Sweden segment of the Distant Prologue (a few days into the new calendar) and the Iceland segment (a few months in) is shown via a series of archive photos taken at various points between those two dates.

Western Animation

• Bruce Wayne in an episode of Batman Beyond was seen looking through old pictures of his past loves on his bat computer on his birthday. Among the pictures are: Zatanna, Lois Lane, Catwoman, and Barbara Gordon.
• Bluey: At the very end of "Daddy Dropoff", Lila expresses hope that she and Bingo will remain friends forever, and a series of photos shows them first in the present, then again around Bluey's age, then as preteens winning a trophy, and finally as young adults graduating together.
• The Simpsons:
  • The basis of a Couch Gag. Each picture shows something different, such as Homer dying and being replaced with Lenny, until the entire family is robots by the end of it.
  • In "Moe Baby Blues", ends with a montage of Moe, Maggie, Homer, and Moe's ham enjoying a day out at the amusement park. After a few photos of all four, the rest are only of Homer and the ham.
  • "Fraudcast News" ends with a montage of pictures showing Mr. Burns and Smithers going shopping.
  • "Moe Letter Blues", an episode set on Mother's Day, includes a montage of characters and their mothers (ending on Homer and Mona) over the credits.
  • "Holidays of Future Passed" shows 30 years worth of future Christmas card photos.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic shows one of these for the "style" portion of Rainbow Dash's competition to pick a pet in "May the Best Pet Win".
  • "A Canterlot Wedding" has one during the post-wedding celebration.
  • "Just For Sidekicks" opens with a pan over some photos of Peewee the phoenix living with Spike and Twilight Sparkle, ending with Spike returning Peewee to his real parents.
• Justice League Unlimited In "Task Force X", Clock King shows the Task Force X team some videos with the heroic exploits of Captain Atom, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter with ominous music.
• Time Squad shows one of Larry and Otto having a fun time together sightseeing in ancient China while Tuddrussel is busy getting arrested while they're away.

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