A 19-year-old student hid a camera in clothes to take secret street shots in the 1890s

Karl Störmer (1872-1957) had a very unusual hobby for his time. He walked around Oslo (Norway) in the 1890s with his spy camera and secretly filmed the daily life of people in the city. The subjects in Störmer’s photographs are represented in their natural environment, which is extremely different from the serious and strict posing trends that dominated photography in those years.

Carl designed his C.P. Stirn Concealed Vest in 1893 when he studied mathematics at Royal University of Frederick (now the University of Oslo). "It was a flat round canister, hidden under a vest, with a lens sticking out of a loop, he said in an interview with St. Hallvard Journal in 1942. - Under my clothes I had a ribbon running through the hole in my trouser pocket, and when I yanked it, the camera took a picture ".

The first Norwegian paparazzi usually photographed people when they greeted him on the street. “I walked along Karl Johans Street, found my victim, said hello, politely smiled and yanked the cord. I could take six images at a time, and then went home to change the tape.”