We've all been there. The subjects of your photos are blinded and peeved. Not to mention all those covert spy ops where a flash compromises your position. Well a pair of researchers at NYU have the solution: an invisible flash!

The inventors have dubbed it a dark light flash. It uses Ultra Violet and Infra-red  lights, which are beyond the spectrum of visible light for humans.

UV light... isn't that what gives people skin cancer?  Well the researchers looked into the safety side of things and found that each flash is the equivalent of being exposed to 1/100 of a second of sunlight. Even the palest of the pale can withstand that.

The research will be presented at the Siggraph computer graphics and interactive technologies conference this week. You can find more on the science behind it here. 

So who did these inventors have in mind when they designed this space age technology? Why the paparazzi of course. But what would a red carpet event be without the twinkle of flashes from behind the ropes?