"Love Is a Camera" was serviced to hot adult contemporary radio stations in the United Kingdom as the third single from Wanderlust.

To accompany the song's release, Sophie Muller was enlisted as the director for the music video of "Love Is a Camera", which was filmed in the Italian city of Florence.

[2] David Farrell of PopMatters described the track as a "plodding tango", while The Daily Telegraph writer Neil McCormick deemed it an "elaborate baroque quasi-ballad".

Ellis-Bextor denoted her literary choices—as a child and a student—as influences for the song, listing Russian fairytales, folk stories and Emily Dickinson's works as examples.

"Love Is a Camera" narrates the story of a "spooky old" woman who lives "in a house on the hill", and takes pictures of individuals, only to preserve their souls in the photographs "behind glass".

She elaborated, "You'd have to have a heart of cold, igneous rock not to enjoy [this track] just a little, but if you were never a member of your local youth theatre company the sticky-sweetness of it all quickly becomes cloying.

[13] The song was serviced to hot adult contemporary stations in the United Kingdom; it was included in the A-List of BBC Radio 2.

The video commences with Ellis-Bextor, who plays an "eerie temptress" dressed in a black "ankle-length, lace-trimmed" gown, walking and dancing slowly inside a classical mansion.

[18] Reviewing her concert at the Bush Hall, James Lachno of The Daily Telegraph lauded Ellis-Bextor's performance of the song.

"[19] After attending Ellis-Bextor's concert at the Oran Mor, an anonymous writer for The Scotsman commented that the song "sounded grand in the live setting".