Imagine taking a family trip to see, say Mt. Rushmore. You spend the day at the site, snapping pictures of your kids and spouse in different poses in front of the monument and then, when you get home and download the images (or get your film developed if you still take photos “old school style”), instead of a happy smiling family standing in front of Mt. Rushmore, you see a happy smiling family standing in front of Mt Rushmore….and George Washington has a picture of a Range Rover plastered to his forehead. You don’t remember Washington advertising Range Rovers when you were there, but…there it is in your photo!

Is photography hacking possible? It didn’t use to be, but if the wrong people get their hands on Julius von Bismarck’s ‘Image Fulgurator’, it could become the next big marketing tool.

The Image Fulgurator is a camera that, instead of taking photos, it uses a flash to quickly throw an image into someone else’s photos…images that you can’t see when you take the picture and that only will show up once your images have been processed. The Image Fulgurator detects the flash used by your camera and uses that split second of light to project its own image onto whatever has been targeted by the flash. Currently the Image Fulgurator is only used by von Bismarck, who is quickly trying to get his technology patented to keep it out of the wrong hands (aka marketers).

To learn more about Julius von Bismarck’s Image Fulgurator, read this Wired Blog entry about the camera and its inventor. You will be astounded at all of the ways this new invention can be used….and terrified of the repercussions if the wrong hands get hold of it.

Imagine taking a picture of the Statue of Liberty, getting home and finding that, in your photo, she’s wearing a sash that reads “Try Bud Lite!”