Us James Bond types in EPUK Towers have all been tooled up with x-ray specs and invisible cars for years, but now, thanks to Q’s fellow boffins at Imperial College London, it looks like the rest of you will soon be able to make invisibility part of your daily professional workflow.
While it might appear that the very concept of invisibility carries inherent disadvantages for photography, our own team of researchers have found the opposite. Early tests have shown it to be a boon for newspaper photographers faced with the daily problem of writers and TV crews intruding at press conferences and the like. Simply aerosol the obstructions with BluntVanish™ and you get a clear crack at that World Press award-winning handshake: just remember to shake the can first, or the effect can be permanent.
Likewise, photojournalists and documentary photographers always claim they wish to remain invisible to catch the decisive moment a la Cartier-Bresson. Now simply spray yourself with SecretSmudger™ and you really will be invisible, despite those four camera bodies, eight lenses, Domke jacket, Tenba bag, laptop and reversed baseball cap which strangely impeded previous attempts at discretion. Warning: always keep an assistant visible and never use on public highways or other areas with moving vehicles.
It might appear that the big losers in this latest technology will be Her Majesty’s Paparazzi. After all what’s the point of staking out the likes of Brangelina or Tom Cruise if you can’t see the buggers? Fortunately we have the solution. Simply load your dispenser with CelebReveal™ – an EPUK joint product with Dulux, different Day-Glo colours available – and hose ‘em down for real. Not only will your subjects be rendered visible, but they will also look suitably ridiculous, resulting in more saleable pictures. Caution: not to be used on infants. The effect on celebrities accompanied by bodyguards may be unpredictable: for best results use in combination with SecretSmudger™.
Eventually we expect a fully integrated suite of invisibility workflow products to be available covering all aspects of the photographer’s job, from image capture to billing. These will include the related negotiating tools PR-Off™ and ShinyBumRemover™, and the highly anticipated accountancy function BeanGone™. It is understood that these three will have a variety of sophisticated timing settings, including “per job” and “permanent”.
So what do the inventors of the future of photography actually look like themselves? In another EPUK exclusive we have the first picture of Dr Mark Frogley and Professor Chris Philips, heirs to Fox Talbot and Bill Gates:
