System · the technology

Built from scratch.

We developed every part of the project ourselves: a patented method, a family of camera triggers, creative software, and a fully owned stack that adapts to any space and feeds a living archive of millions of portraits.

Patented method · 2016Fully owned stack2,189,044 portraits archived

The two-way-mirror rig: a framed mirror on a tripod with the camera mounted behind the glass

01 · The method

The mirror is a camera.

A two-way mirror, a camera, and the remote in your hand. A face-to-face connection system facilitating a unique kind of visual vulnerability.

It began in 2009 as a framed mirror, lumber, black fabric, and a wired remote. The apparatus has changed; the principle hasn't.

2016US patent issued

2009First rig, Brooklyn

The apparatus · scroll to explore

Classic, from every angle.

A two-way mirror, a camera, and a cabinet containing our proprietary tech. Scroll to move around the whole unit.

The Self-Portrait unit from the front — the two-way mirror on its wooden stand

The unit from the side, showing the iPad control screen

Two-way mirror

See yourself reflected.

Camera behind the glass

Photographing through the transparent side unseen.

You take the shot

Agency over how and when you snap the picture.

Your portrait

Looking into your own eyes — a face-to-face connection system.

02 · Triggers

However you fire the shutter.

The release is the moment of authorship, so we've built a family of them. The same camera-behind-glass core accepts any trigger the room calls for — from a phone in your pocket to an arcade gun bolted to a cabinet.

The original

Wireless remote

The 2009 method — a button on a radio remote. Tactile, instant, and reliable.

QR Remote

Your phone

Scan a code and your own phone becomes the shutter — with photos emerging directly on it.

Big Buck Booth

Arcade gun

We rewired a Big Buck Hunter cabinet so the toy gun triggers the camera at will.

Hands-free

Foot pedal

As easy as stepping on a button. Simple, intuitive, and great for most events.

03 · Creative software

More than a photobooth.

Because we own the software, the portrait doesn't end at capture — it becomes something the participant and our system make together. These are just a few of the tools we've built — a sample of how versatile the system is, each one a different way to co-author the image on the participant's terms. Demos and outcomes live on Experience; here are three of them.

Drawing overlay

Participants draw, sign, or annotate on top of their images using a tablet; the strokes composite onto the portrait before export — a photograph finished by hand.

Double exposure

Two frames blended into one: a second self. Blend modes and masking run in software, so there's no darkroom and no waiting.

AI background swap

The subject is segmented from the rest of the photo in real time and dropped onto customizable AI-generated or rotating backdrops. Developed for Art Basel.

04 · The stack

We own every layer.

Hardware, software, UX, and delivery are all ours — which is why the system adapts to any room and every contributed portrait lands in the same archive. Four layers, one pipeline.

Capture

A professional camera behind the two-way mirror, fired by the participant's own trigger — studio-grade capture that's genuinely self-authored.

Software

Capture, compositing, and the archive all run on software we wrote ourselves, so the whole pipeline bends to the work.

Media

Every frame is processed in the moment: composited, corrected, and rendered into whatever format the delivery calls for.

Delivery

Instant digital to the participant plus a print in hand on-site where available — the portrait is theirs before they leave the room.

05 · The archive

Every portrait flows into one place.

Every capture is stored and its metadata indexed; the participant decides whether it becomes public. The technology isn't the point — it's the infrastructure of memory. Two million portraits and counting, growing by a thousand on a peak day.

Enter the living archive

Capturetrigger → camera

Compositeoverlay · exposure · AI

Storemedia + metadata

Consentparticipant decides

Deliverdigital + print

The document