“There’s something that always bothered me about photography when it came to taking pictures of people. Putting the camera in front of my face meant that while I could still see whoever I was taking a photo of, but he or she couldn’t see me. To me, that meant that the communication was interrupted. I didn’t like it.”
Nowadays that doesn’t seem too much of an issue any more as everybody is just looking at tiny screens all the time and when it comes to taking photos, it seems okay that you hold up your phone into the other person’s face (while again not looking at them but rather on the aforementioned tiny screen). That’s all fine, because we all communicate via screens these days anyway and, most of the time, we end up being ‘closer’ to people on the other side of the world than we are to the person next to us. You start wondering what people were doing before smartphones were invented…
So, the question is, is there a need for another type of camera in our digital age? We thing there is. Will people carry it with them, additionally to the phone? Maybe. Hopefully. Because while all the other cameras out there can do amazing things, there’s one thing they can’t: Allow the direct eye-to-eye contact between the 2 people either side of the lens.
We call it ‘Smile Catcher’ and it’s as low-tech as it possibly can be. It’s just one step further from holding your hands up with thumbs and index fingers forming a square and say ‘click’. Because of this, it’s also fast and spontaneous. Since it has only that one function there is no need for switches and screens and wiping through menus.
“You know I’m a child of the analogue age. I like communicating the good old-fashioned way. Face to face. And leave the phone in the pocket. So I wanted to create a little digital device that allows me to do exactly that.”
