Say cheese: Tripod, timer dress up cheap cameras

Say cheese: Tripod, timer dress up cheap cameras
By Chris Barge, Camera Staff Writer - DailyCamera.com

July 9, 2003

Greg Joy wasn't happy.

Call it a midlife crisis, like his wife did. Or just call it a time ripe for a new adventure.

For whatever reason, Joy, 45, sent himself on an eight-day backpacking trip in southern Utah with the Boulder Outdoor Survival School last summer. He returned to his house near San Francisco with an idea that changed his life.

This was a hard-core trip for the 22-year computer software engineer. There in the aspens above 9,000 feet, his instructors set him loose for two days to fend for himself with a handful of food and no tent.

He leaned a branch against a pine tree and lined long sticks against each side. He filled in the walls with aspen leaves for insulation.

He was proud of his accomplishment. He wanted his wife and friends to see a picture of him in his brush hut. But his instant one-time-use camera didn't have a timer.

He sat in the hut and held the camera outside it with his arm. That just wouldn't do.

Eureka.

"When you have a couple days of not talking to anyone and you have a pencil and a notebook, you have some time to draw some plans," he said.

Joy drew a 4-inch tripod with bendy legs, and a strap for a one-time-use camera with a timer on top.

He flew home from the course determined to make his idea for the Picture Yourself tripod and timer a reality. He built balsa wood prototypes. He consulted friends in the engineering design industry. He found a manufacturer in China. He applied for a patent.

Last month, he launched a Web site, www.joyinnovations.com, and started selling his accessory (about $13.80 with shipping included) online. Today, he's sold more than 5,000 of them, his wife works on the project full time, and he's about to hire a couple of employees.

Turns out, Joy tapped a booming one-time-use camera market. More than 200 million people bought those cheap cameras last year, up from 6 million back in 1989, when they were introduced, according to the Photo Marketing Association. Today, 11 percent of U.S. households use only single-use cameras.

"They have evolved over the past decade to really more of a mainstay in people's households," said Gary Pageau, associate publisher for PMA's trade magazine.

Fred Gardner, a waiter and information technologies student in Los Angeles who loves to kayak and mountain bike, ordered the tripod-timer combo after seeing it featured on CNN.

He took it kayaking with his brother in northern California.

"I hate taking a regular camera along because it tends to get wet," he said. "It was neat. The legs are bendable, so I wrapped them under the kayak's deck webbing, and now have pictures of myself cruising down the rapids."

To operate it, all you do is strap the camera in, twist the spring-loaded knob and wait 12 seconds for a firing pin to take your picture. Just be sure to keep the strap to the side of the lens, says Gardner. He had to learn that lesson the hard way.

This summer, Joy, the inventor, took his family to Hawaii. As they posed in front of a volcano, a crowd of tourists gathered around.

Joy smiled extra wide for the yellow camera.

At last, he was happy.