TimeStopper, Stop time like a “Hero”

Kenichi Okada

Today’s traditional Single Lens Reflex (SLR) digital and analog cameras are meant to do one thing, and perform this task well. Their aim is to take a picture from the vantage point of a lone photographer in order to produce a replica of that person’s frame of vision at a specific place in time. Responding to this
minimalist form and function of the standard camera, Kenichi Okada, a student in the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art, decided to create “Time Stopper“. The project consists of a new form of optical capture device that allows the photographer to simultaneously take a photo from four different angles in order to allow for more depth of field in a photo. After taken, the resulting shots are then composited into a single animation and played back on the display embedded in the camera. The effect created is a low-tech homage to the “bullet time” effect pioneered in movies like “The Matrix” and overdone by countless movie studios trying to impart a high level of optical effects into their films. Okada describes the result as “frozen time” where the viewer can navigate through and around the images in order to gain another perspective of the shot. Interesting idea that allows for this somewhat expensive effect to be created on the cheap and in a portable apparatus.

Jonah Brucker-Cohen