BY JASON SHUFFLER

Portland photographer Joanne Denzer was planning a trip to Belize but didn’t want to lug a cumbersome camera tripod into the rainforest with her. Denzer’s need to stabilize her camera along with a desire to travel light and still shoot steady eventually led to the Body Camera Mount. Developed with co-inventor and business partner Thom Gambaro (the first prototype pieces were molded in Gambaro’s home convection oven), the contraption is a wearable tripod that provides the stability needed for longer exposed images and clearer photographs but allows for maximum mobility in an uncontrolled environment. The front platform for the camera is attached to rubber straps that wrap over the shoulders and around the chest, much like a life vest. The Portland-based Body Camera Mount Co. is seeking investors to start manufacturing and selling the camera mount at roughly the same price as a tripod, about $125. It’s “the functionality of having a platform wherever you are,” says Gambaro. Denzer’s hope is that the device will one day become a standard in photography.