The temptation to use technology for spying has been with us for a long time. The camera below is not your father’s spy-cam, more like your great-grandfather’s spy camera.
Fredrik Carl Størmer (1874-1957) was a Norwegian mathematician and astrophysicist – and amateur photographer. He purchased his first hidden camera- a “C.P. Stirn Concealed Vest Spy Camera“- when he was a young student of mathematics in Oslo. It was small enough so the lens could fit through the buttonhole in his vest with a cord that led down to his pocket, allowing him to secretly snap away.
CP Stirn’s hidden vest camera was introduced in October 1886 and continued to around 1892. It consisted of a thin nickel-plated or rusted six-inch diameter device carrying 1 plate for 6 clear snapshots measuring 1 3/4 of an inch in diameter. The package came with six plates and a transport box to take 36 photos.
Stormer frequently photographed people he met on the street, so many of his subjects appear quite friendly. Others, though, seem a bit suspicious of his actions.
His biography was documented in 1958 by Sydney Chapman in the “Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society“. Mr. Chapman was able to interview Carl Stormer shortly before his passing.
“In 1930 he told me how he developed into a photographer. When he was a young man at Oslo University he fell in love with a lady whom he did not know and with whom he was too bashful to become acquainted. Wishing at least to have a picture of her, he decided that this was possible only by taking a photograph of her himself, without her knowing. So he procured a small camera that could be concealed under his coat, the exposure being made through his buttonhole. He succeeded in this difficult task. The love affair came to nothing; later the lady left Oslo for America and married. Years later she returned to Oslo. By this time he was famous. Meeting her, he told her of the incident. Later he applied his skill in photography (unsuspected by the subject) to obtain pictures also of many of the celebrities of Oslo of those days.”
Not to portray him as only a youthful tinkerer or stalker, Mr. Stormer continued in life to be come a prominent mathematician, geophysicist, and astrophysical researcher. Wikipedia.
References:
Steemit blog with details on the CP Stirn Camera
BoredPanda.com article with over 100 photos.
Biography of Carl Stormer at royalsocietypublishing.org
My Modern Met article on Mr. Stormer