Image Fulgurator Sneaks Unseen Details Into Others' Photos

Given the spread of Photoshop editing, the old phrase "photos never lie" carries far less weight than it used to.  Still, people tend to trust pictures they've taken themselves, and that's where Julius von Bismarck's Image Fulgurator comes in.  A way of adding extra detail to others' photos - that aren't visible to the eye but show up in the final shot – it's automatically triggered when another camera's flash goes off and projects an image exactly when that camera is taking its picture.

"In principle, the Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there is another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It operates via a kind of reactive flash projection that enables an image to be projected on an object exactly at the moment when someone else is photographing it. The intervention is unobtrusive because it takes only a few milliseconds. Every photo another photographer takes of an object at which the Fulgurator is also aimed is affected by the manipulation. Hence visual information can be smuggled unnoticed into the images of others" Julius von Bismarck 

Inside the Fulgurator is a standard camera body, loaded with developed slide film.  When the light sensor recognizes a photo being taken, it triggers a flash unit behind the camera, projecting the images on the film onto whatever is being photographed. 

Since the projection is so quick, the human eye doesn't see it happen; the evidence only shows up on the photos themselves.  Julius used the Image Fulgurator at a Barack Obama speech in Berlin, Germany; you can see the effect in the gallery below.

Fulgurator prototype demo:

[via NOTCOT]