It’s been awhile since we’ve had a chance to post news on the blog here, but that doesn’t mean the site has been dormant. On the contrary, we’ve had additions to the site in almost every category over the last few weeks. We’ll take a look at new locations, movies, TV shows, newspaper articles, and album covers today.
First, a bit of history:
In a February 1970 Los Angeles Times interview with singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, the author describes Webb’s upcoming album this way:
…[A]nother current project is a new album, with Webb compositions sung entirely by Webb. Jim’s been working on the recording for about six months: he has daily sessions—morning and afternoon, often breaks for dinner and returns to work into the small hours. The LP will be called ‘Confessions in a Photo Booth,’ but he’ll introduce the new material, all of it, in his concert debut on Saturday at the Music Center.
In an August 1970 Billboard column (see it here on Google Books), the album is named as his first on Reprise. By the time it was released, “Confessions in a Photo Booth” had become “Words and Music,” so the world was robbed of what could have been a prominent photobooth-titled album.
Continuing in the world of music, Callan Furlong wrote to let us know that his EP The Fool I Was Before features photostrips on the cover.
And finally, while browsing the aisles at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, I spotted this recent CD from The Living Sisters:
We have a few new locations to mention, the first not too far from (my) home, at Dexter’s Camera in Ventura, California, where Photo-Me installed a black and white booth this week. Thanks to Matt and Raul for letting us know about the booth.
The second is slightly further afield, in Riga, Latvia, where Kate Tyler found a color machine, one of the only original booths still active in Europe. Time for a road trip to Riga! Please keep your contributions coming.
Next, we’ll move on to television, where the photobooth continues to be a mainstay of current shows: this time, reality juggernaut “The Bachelor” took a turn in the booth. During Week 7 of the most recent series, the Bachelor and one of his ladies visited the photobooth at Orange Dracula in Seattle, and took some photos.
Looking back a few decades, Les Matons clued us into a 1960s French TV show, La Caméra Invisible, that featured a photobooth in an episode:
We were excited to read a nice newspaper piece on our buddy Anthony Vizzari and his company, A & A Studios, this past weekend. The original article in the Chicago Grid is here, and we’ve got it archived here, as well. Congratulations, Anthony and all the crew at A & A.
We’ve also added a few new movies to roster. Last year’s Academy Award-winner in the Documentary Feature category, Undefeated, features a photobooth shot of a young Bill Courtney, who would grow up to be the coach at the center of this story.
Going a little further back, we have a few more passing photobooth shots in the animated short The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, as well as in the 1984 West German film Wundkanal.
Finally, a French film about a woman obsessed with the photobooth who ends up meeting the photobooth repairman… Sound familiar? Well, it’s not Amélie. It’s Lucille et le Photomaton, a 1993 short by Sébastien Nuzzo that we’ve long been meaning to add to the site.
