This is the first time a car was used as a camera



These days, anyone can whip their phone out and take a decent picture anytime, anywhere. Smartphones have come so far that its cameras can make a teenager’s holiday selfie look like it was professionally taken. This award-winning photographer though, just took photography to a whole new level.

For the first time ever, a car was used as a camera by a photographer. Barbara Davidson, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and artist teamed up with Volvo Cars to create a special collection of photographs taken with the on-board safety cameras of the new Volvo XC60.

As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. The collection of around 30 photographs which were taken in the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark through the lenses of the XC60’s on-board safety camera, were simply spectacular.

Firstly it is a snapshot of European city life in all its glory; secondly it also highlights the complex environments that we live in. It is thanks to the cameras and other on-board sensors that cars like the Volvo XC60 make modern city life safer for pedestrians and other road users,” said Davidson.

Now it may have seemed like just another challenge for a decorated photographer to embark on but Barbara Davidson’s history with Volvo runs deeper than that. As a young girl, she was involved in a severe car accident; it had flipped over and Barbara was told that the only reason why she survived was because she was in a Volvo. Exaggerated? Unlikely.

In 2008 the Swedish brand launched the first standard autonomous emergency braking system, City Safety, in the first XC60. It’s been proven to have reduced collisions by up to 45% in Sweden alone.

Dubbed the Vision 2020, it is high on Volvo’s priority that no one should be killed or even seriously injured in a new Volvo vehicle by the year 2020. Judging from their track record and how things have developed, its a more realistic feat than our own local “Wawasan (Vision) 2020” will ever be.


IMAGE GALLERY