A Conversation With Haje Jan Kamps

Recently Haje published a very open and honest article on Medium about the unfortunate happening with Triggertraps’s product, Ada. I had a conversation with Haje to share some of what happened and what to expect.

Tell me about your photographic history

I’ve been taking photos for a very long time, and I’ve had an interest in the photography industry separately for a long time. I started one of the very first photography blogs in Norway, digitalkamera.no,  in the late 1990s.

When I moved to the UK to do a Journalism degree, I continued taking photos, and started the Photocritic photography blog  (and later the Photocritic Photography School (a free newsletter that serves as a 1-year photography school).

I worked as a freelance photographer for a while, but soon discovered that I hated it; I remember telling a friend ‘I like having sex, but getting paid to have sex… there’s a word for that. Having just likened my hobby to prostitution, I focused on writing about photography instead, and taking photos when I was in the mood for it instead. That ended up being a better mix.

Because of the blog, a publisher found me, but before long, I had written 10 books about photography, which, of course, helped fuel the photography school further.

Above anything else, I think I’m an educator – I love helping people reach their photographic potential.

How did Triggertrap get started?

I was working on a book on DIY photography, including building a camera completely from scratch. That didn’t go so well, but one of the things I was working on was a laser trigger.

Around the same time, I discovered Kickstarter, and I thought it was one of the most awesome things I’d ever heard of. I did a Kickstarter campaign for the Triggertrap v1  – and it was a huge success.

Meanwhile, we figured that perhaps it would make sense to use the power of your mobile phone to trigger cameras in interesting ways. As it turned out, that worked really well, and we did Triggertrap Mobile, which turns your Android / iOS phone into a powerful remote with a ton of different features.

Why did you go the Kickstarter route?

Kickstarter is nothing short of magic: It’s incredibly difficult to get a product to market, and there’s always a lot of risk involved. I figured that the first challenge would be to find out whether anybody wanted the product in the first place. 300% funding later, and it turned out that yes, people really did want it. So then we went away and built it.

For backers, Kickstarter is awesome: You can bring a product that wouldn’t have happened otherwise to life. But of course, there’s a risk, too: If the Kickstarter campaign fails to deliver, you’ve been part of the journey, but you get nothing to show for it. Unfortunately, we know that one intimately, too. We did a second Kickstarter campaign for Triggertrap Ada, a much more advanced version of the Triggertrap v1. This time, we raised a truly staggering amount of money – nearly half a million dollars – but I think that this was a large part of the problem as well. Having all that money in our bank account masked the fact that things were costing so much more than we had planned for.

What does the future of Triggertrap look like?

It’s hard to say. We’re getting a lot of supportive e-mails from people who are, of course, disappointed, but are continuing to support us. The comments on the Kickstarter page are complete carnage, however , and since this is happening right now, it’s hard to see how it’s going to pan out. On the one hand, we hope that people are willing to forgive us for making a huge, ambitious bet and failing. On the other hand, it looks like a very vocal minority is calling for us to declare the company bankrupt and give up.

I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen next – but I hope that people recognise that the world of Photography is better served by Triggertrap being able to continue developing and servicing our Triggertrap Mobile products, than going out of business.

Having said that, I’m really impressed with what people are doing with our Triggertrap products, and the Triggertrap Flickr group goes a long way to helping lift our spirits – Thousands of photographers posting thousands of incredible photographs tri.gg/flickr is such a great inspiration.

We have big plans for our Mobile solutions, and are committed to continue delivering awesome products for our customers.

–

I for one will be staying positive for Triggertrap, as I’m a huge fan and believer in what they’re doing. I feel bad for both them and the backers of Ada, but I know everyone will get past it. The future is grand for Triggertrap, I can tell you that!

– Scott