A very dark box that doesn't let light in, a hole, a lens, and something to serve as a shutter. Those are the essential elements of any primitive camera. Now, what can we expect when the general design is based on a potato? Not in the figurative sense of the web, but on a real potato. The folks at Corridor Crew decided to answer that question, and although they cheated a little (because they placed a small 3D-printed box inside the potato), they ultimately managed to get a couple of photos…
The original expression “Recorded with a potato” is supposed to be a reference to recordings, not photographs. Nobody knows exactly when it was first used, but it clicked immediately with users. Old cameras left much to be desired in quality, and there’s always a YouTuber who improvises a piece of content using a webcam. Even current smartphones are considered “potatoes” when filming or taking photos, simply because they can’t compete with dedicated cameras. So what I honestly didn’t expect is that someone would go to the trouble of making a real camera with a potato…
In Corridor Crew they looked for a very large potato, cleaned out a good part of its inside, printed a small plastic box to fit inside the potato, and forced a lens into one of its ends. Both the loading and advancing of the film is completely manual, as is the shutter, or rather, the lens cap. Of course, the participants in the project didn’t expect to get anything serious with the potato, and they acknowledged that a simple human figure would be a huge success. They also had some trouble finding a place to process the film in Los Angeles.
Despite that, luck was on their side, and once they scanned the negative, they managed to see several ghosts that are on par with any documentary dedicated to the supernatural. Comparisons to Slender Man were inevitable, and if they had a mechanism to control focus, they might look a bit better. Either way, mission accomplished. Will there be a version 2.0?
