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Photographer Builds a Wearable Fully-Functional Camera as His Halloween Costume

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This past Halloween, photographer Bryan Troll did what he does best—he took pictures. But, being that it’s one of the few times of year when costumes are encouraged, Troll snapped his photos with a twist—he was dressed as a fully-functioning camera that shot all his images.

It took Troll at least 40 hours and about $100 in supplies to construct this impressive outfit, but his efforts were worth it—the costume captured and displayed photos just like a real digital SLR camera. There’s a strobe flash, an actual shutter, and an LCD screen that showcased the pictures as Troll took them. It made for a great party trick that people won’t soon forget.

There were aesthetic challenges when making this costume as well as technical ones. “I tried to balance having it be as proportional as possible so it looked good,” Troll explained to DIYPhotography, “but I also needed to make sure it fit me, and fit all the gear inside as well so it was an interesting challenge of measure, cut, trim, and tape, tape, tape each component.” In addition to the outer shell, he needed to ensure that the connectivity between the camera and screen would be reliable so that “it would automatically display the photos after they are taken without losing connection, [and go] to sleep.” Thankfully, Troll was able to solve these issues and create his epic costume. It’ll be hard to top it when next Halloween rolls around!

Here's the costume in action:

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Troll documented his process:

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These are some of the photos Troll took with his costume:

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Bryan Troll: Facebook
via [Laughing Squid, PetaPixel]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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