As we get back into the swing of things, we’ll start with a quick trip back to the biggest event of 2014, the International Photobooth Convention in Chicago. In addition to our own recap of the weekend’s festivities, we had some great recaps from Matt at Photo-Matica, Tony DeFrank (who came all the way out from California), and an amazingly detailed and thoughtful wrap-up from Meags Fitzgerald. Thanks, everyone!
Since the convention, we’ve had an incredible list of new booth locations to add to the site, from six countries on three continents. I can’t remember the last time we had such a varied and interesting set of contributions. Thanks again to our readers for continuing to document these booths so faithfully.
We’ll start with a real surprise, our first ever photobooth located on the continent of Africa! Thanks to a conversation we had at the convention, Steph sent me photos and info about the booth, located in the center of Kampala, Uganda, which she had visited in 2007. We’re not certain it’s still there, but either way, we’re happy to have the booth listed in our directory.
In other news of new booths, we heard from Alexander Spevak, who let us know about the first booth we have listed in the Czech Republic. The black and white booth is located at the Kino Světozor, and a strip will set you back 50 koruna.
And just this week, thanks to an email from Stefan of Photoautomat Amsterdam, we’re elated to be able to add a photochemical photobooth location along the Herengracht canal in lovely Amsterdam. The booth is located at the Lomography Store, and takes euro coins and custom tokens — nice!
Our thanks go out as well to Matteo of Fotoautomatica, who has informed us of a new black and white booth location at Borgo Burger in Livorno, Italy, bringing their total to five machines around the country.
Swinging back across the Atlantic, we have a new location in Canada, doing its part to turn the tide of booth closures across the country, a black and white booth at the Cobalt Motor Hotel in Vancouver.
And finally, a few new locations in the U.S. First, thanks to Connie Begg for sending us info and photos about the booth at Heebe Jeebe in Petaluma, California, right before the convention.
Tony let us know about a photobooth at Big Fun in Columbus, Ohio, which follows along in the Big Fun tradition of very nearly burying their photobooths amongst the products available for sale.
We’d also like to thank Ruthie for sending in a photo and scan from the booth at the new Ace Hotel Los Angeles, which continues the Ace tradition of a “booth in (nearly) every hotel.”
As it turns out, the booth at the Ace L.A. is actually the machine that used to be located at their Portland outpost; can anyone confirm that the Ace Portland has another booth, or has it become a booth-less Ace?
Staying in Portland, we’d like to finally thank our convention buddy Kory for contributing photos and info from a black and white booth at Dot’s Cafe, with its lovely polka dot back curtain.
And finally, thanks to Nathan for letting us know about the black and white booth at Montana, a bar in Seattle. Especially in busy photobooth cities like Portland and Seattle, locations are always coming and going, so we rely on our readers to keep us posted. Thanks again, everyone, and keep the emails coming! We’ll be back next week with another update recap from the summer.