A Student’s Point of View: Robert Latorre and his Freeze Bot!

A few weeks ago during the 2019 RIT Brick City weekend, I had the privilege of checking out the Freeze Bot, Robert Latorre’s new piece used during the Alumni Ball. If you’re unfamiliar with Latorre, he is an alum from the photography program at RIT and he has used his knowledge to develop and code his very own camera rigs. Much of them are used for large events seen on television, such as the Oscars!

Robert with his very cool setup!

His newest addition, the Freeze Bot, is a little different than his normal crazy rigs. While he often sets up with easily over dozens and dozens of cameras, for this piece, Latorre uses a single camera and a robot to control the camera. He wrote code to control this amazing bot, which rotates in all sorts of directions.

A still frame from his rig last year, which featured a ring of cameras all fired at nearly the same time to capture a moment frozen in time.

Several different types of code were written so each movement is different from person to person who takes their “photo” with the bot (it’s really a slow-motion video). We were able to have some fun with it, check out the videos below!

What happens while the video is being taken!

Latorre’s rigs are one of a kind and he even has some set up in remote places such as the Empire State Building. It’s one thing to design this, but another to have success with it. With every image taken from just the Empire State Building alone, Latorre makes a certain commission. And since opening just a year or two ago, over one million photos have been snapped!

As a photographic Sciences student, this was quite amazing to see. Not only is it inspiring, it demonstrates the many paths our students will take to succeed. Latorre used the skills he learned in classes that I am, and we are literally taking at the moment, and made it into something magical. It just goes to show how much can be done within our field. I’m so happy I was fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes look at this awesome addition to the alumni ball. Thank you, Robert, for sharing your experiences and inventions with us, and thank you, Ted Kinsman, for arranging for us to visit the setup!

Robert Latorre’s website: https://bigfreeze.com/

To check out the videos, please follow these links and enjoy my goofiness!

http://rit.tbf360.com/2019/1571348349

http://rit.tbf360.com/2019/1571347394

http://rit.tbf360.com/2019/1571347044

http://rit.tbf360.com/2019/1571346678

BIO: Mia Guariano is a third-year Imaging and Photographic Technology student from Syracuse, New York. In her free time, she enjoys painting, baking, and hanging out with her family, especially her grandparents.

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