Photographers are naturally drawn to the people, landscapes, and moments that move them emotionally. But have you ever wondered what a dog would photograph? In 2015, Nikon set out to find out by creating a camera harness with a built-in heart-rate monitor. Whenever a dog’s heart started fluttering with excitement, the camera automatically took a picture, offering a glimpse into the world through canine eyes.
The project, called Heartography, centered on a Border Collie named Grizzler. He wore a Nikon camera housed in a custom neck-mounted case, along with a heart-rate monitor that continuously tracked his pulse and wirelessly transmitted the data to the camera. A built-in OLED screen showed the dog’s pulse in real-time, and buttons next to it let users determine the heart-rate level that will trigger a photograph.
Creative Director Jared Kang collaborated with Nikon to make the inventive idea a reality. He recalled, “It feels great when you look at something and then you realize an idea is there for the taking, and feel almost stupid for not seeing it before. That’s exactly what happened with Heartography.”
Originally, Kang had wanted to use a cat to test the product. “We approached a tech builder to help us build a prototype. Born from Polar running monitors and hacked with a custom Bluetooth chip, we tried to place it on a cat,” he said. “If you’ve ever tried to place a polar running belt on a cat, you would probably realize it isn’t a good idea.” He added, “One terrified cat and several afternoons later, we also realized the cat’s heart rate averages at double a human’s, so our adapted Polar monitor wouldn’t be able to pick up on signals properly.”
The team settled on a dog because it could comfortably support Nikon’s lightest camera in a custom housing, while its lower heart rate made it well suited to the monitoring system. Grizzler was let loose to photograph the world through his own eyes, and the photos were revealed.
It might come as no surprise that subjects like a bowl of food, a cat, and a goose made Grizzler’s heart race. But some of his photos were more unexpected, including a cluster of fungi and tins of baked beans. Perhaps dogs have richer, more complex inner lives than we imagine.
Find out more about the Heartography project in the video above.
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Source: Heartography
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