Imagine pointing your lens at something and the camera not letting you take the picture because what you are looking at has been photographed too many times.
Copenhagen designer and artist Phillipp Schmitt has developed the Camera Restricta, a device that first tracks its own location and searches online for photos that have been geotagged for the area within the camera’s range.
Photo: Phillipp Schmitt
Photo: Phillip Schmitt
If Camera Restricta senses an excessive number of tags for say a landmark statue, it will retract the shutter button, flash a red X in the viewfinder and basically kill any notion you had to add to an already exhaustive collection of pictures.
More than 2,600 photos every second are uploaded to Instagram, making Schmitt’s conceptual project a statement on the tsunami of digital images and our collective obsession with documenting everything.
“Camera Restrictive could be a controversial tech product, promising unique pictures by preventing the user from contributing to the overflow of generic digital imagery,” Schmitt writes on his website. “Camera Restrictive introduces new limitation to prevent (that) overflow. As a byproduct, these limitations also bring about new sensations like the thrill of being the first or last person to photograph a certain place.”
Schmitt built a plastic camera that also houses an iPhone to monitor the geotags. The camera has an antenna and makes a Geiger-counter-like sound if a photographer is approaching a frequently photographed area.
Schmitt does not say how many pictures is too many, nor does he outline his intentions for future use or if more Camera Restrictas will be built.
Schmitt made a film (see below) and posted it on Vimeo following a photographer around Copenhagen as she tried, often unsuccessfully, to find unique places for photographs.
Source: designboom
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
7 responses to “This smart camera tells you when your idea is not original”
How about just an app to let you know without having to carry around more hardware?
So … it’s no longer cool to photograph the Eiffel Tower, or Statue of Liberty or the Pyramids? How stupid.
Well, it’s a “conceptual project”. It’s more a commentary on how we humans document ourselves and our lives than an actual “this is the product of the future”. As a product it is kind of stupid yes. As a critic on ourselves it’s actually pretty cool. It gives you the opportunity to find new places, to not to be generic. It’s like the concept of exploring a city without a map or without a preconceived plan to visit the known landmarks. It’s a great opportunity to find cool spots, to wander around.
Actually, I think this would be a great tool to teach some aspects of photography to students or enthusiasts. Because people always tend to go to the obvious choice. “Oh, it’s the eiffel tower, that’ll make a great photo for sure.” Discovering beauty in the non obvious things is the hardest.
The essence of taking your photo is to make it your own. Even if a place has been captured on ‘still’ millions of times, its outcome as a photo will always be your own.
This idea can be thought of as unique and novel, but constricting. None the less, looking on the periphery of the scope to take an underlying message of taking focus at other things in the world which are usually overlooked, is insightful.
how stupid!!!
I guess if you take a picture of yourself…it’s uncool because it’s not original. I guess selfie is no more then.
there’s something I won’t be buying. If I want to take a photo somewhere I really don’t care how many other folks have done the same. The photo is for me