Celebrity-Shielding Flashgun Handbag Defeats Paparazzi

Beating up your paparazzi stalkers is so last century. The modern celeb might instead turn to non-contact (and non-litigious) means of protection, simultaneously spoiling the paparazzos’ pictures and destroying their parasitic, leech-like livelihood.

Adam Harvey’s Anti-Paparazzi Clutch Bag is extraordinarily simple. It is a slave flash, an extra-bright LED light with a light detector. When it sees the flashgun pop on the photographer’s camera, it fires a burst of its own, right back in the moron’s face and lens, flaring out the picture and in theory erasing the defender’s face.

This is the exact same tech as is found in older strobes (and many newer ones if you know just where to look in the settings). Only instead of triggering multi-light setups wirelessly it just annoys the paparazzi. And instead of using flashbulbs in high-tech boxes, it uses an LED in a handbag. Harvey has applied for a patent (which seems a little cheeky given the ease of making your own) and, we guess, hopes to sell them to the rich, famous and conceited.

Good luck with that, Adam: We have a little advice to help you shift some product in the direction of these taste-challenged clotheshorses, and it is summed up in just one crystal-crushing word. Swarovski. Get on the phone now, young man, or just start selling Sean Penn –branded brass knuckles for those wanting to kick it (and punch it) old-school.

Anti-Paparazzi Clutch Bag [AH Projects via CrunchGear]