Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2018: Week 43

In 1969, a fan readies her tripod to photograph her 10 inch TV screen.

A telepic (plural: "telepix") is a captured image from a television set.

Beginning in the late 1960s, and well before home computers, fans used this analog method to capture stills or images from the aired TV shows. Fans would set up cameras on tripods in front of their TV screens (often only 10 inch sized and in black and white) and snap photos of actors and various scenes.

It was one way for fans to by-pass obtaining official publicity photos and for obtaining more detail on fleeting scenes.

To today's fans, telepics are primitive and low-quality, but to fans of yesteryear, they were often the only source of photo references and illos for sharing with other fans and for printing in zines.