We’ve put up another batch of photos, from the second day of the Convention, on Flickr. They’ve been added to the 2009 IPC set.

Anthony leads his sold-out “Altered Photography” workshop:



Some of the art and collections on the walls of the gallery:



Danny and Nick talk photography:



One of our younger convention-goers gets ready to take photos in the booth:

Check out all of the photos in our set, as well as the photos (and photostrips) of others in the 2009 IPC group pool on Flickr (thanks to Arielle for setting it up).

After an amazing and exhausting International Photobooth Convention this weekend, the various organizers are still unloading trucks, cars, and suitcases, so it will take bit before we can get a full run-down on the events and highlights, but for now, we’ll put up a few photos and videos to give those who weren’t able to make it an idea of what it was like.





Check out the full set of photos on Flickr.



We took some video over the weekend, some of which we’ve already posted below. More is on the way, so check out a few videos on Vimeo.

And finally, we designed some t‑shirts and debuted them at the Convention. Currently there are two in the entire world, one for each half of Photobooth.net, but we’d love to see some more around. Order a shirt, take a photostrip of yourself wearing it, and send it our way! Check out our Photobooth.net t‑shirts at Spreadshirt.

Photobooth Convention from Photobooth on Vimeo.

The photobooth gang are at Center Portion setting up booths and hanging art. The convention opens tonight at 7:00, and we’ll be here all day getting ready.

Unloading the photobooth from Photobooth on Vimeo.

We’ll see you here!

As our list of photobooth locations around the world has grown over the last five years, we’ve often thought of better ways to organize and present the information on the site. Some people like the big list of every single location we know of, but most people who use our site to find a photobooth are curious about booths in a particular city or state, or would like to see all of our photobooths plotted on a map. If you agree, well, this is your lucky day, because we’ve just launched a completely re-vamped Photobooth Directory with three ways to find what you’re looking for.

You can search for all photobooth listing that mention the word “arcade”; you can browse all photobooths in the state of Illinois, for those who will be attending the International Photobooth Convention this weekend; and you can also locate all of our photobooth listings on a map, which displays all of our locations arrayed around the globe.

We’re excited to get this much-needed feature out to the world before the start of the International Photobooth Convention, and we’ve got many more improvements to make and features to add in the future. Here’s hoping you find it useful.

Your 2009 International Photobooth Convention organizers are hard at work preparing for the event from their respective corners of the country as the big day gets ever closer. We’re now just one month away from the opening night, April 3, at Center Portion in Chicago. 

We’ve had a lot of interest via email and through our Facebook group, and would encourage all photobooth artists, collectors, and experimenters out there to contribute to the event, whether or not you can attend. As part of the convention, we’ll be curating a group show of art created in and inspired by the photobooth as well as collections of vernacular or found photobooth photos. Check out the Call for Entries (PDF) if you’re interested in submitting a piece or collection for the show. 

As we’re gearing up for the 2009 International Photobooth Convention and a revamped “Photobooths in Cinema” lecture, I’ve added three major examples of photobooths on film from three important European directors. First, a story of a Frenchman in L.A. directed by Jacques Deray, The Outside Man.



Jean-Louis Trintignant joins a cast including Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, and Angie Dickinson in this story about a hitman who finds himself becoming a target.

Second, thanks to a tip from Klaas Dierks, Wim Wenders’ breakout 1974 film Alice in the Cities.



Rüdiger Vogler plays a writer and photographer who finds himself in charge of a young girl as they try to find her grandmother, somewhere in Germany.

And finally, thanks to an image featured in Federica Muzzarelli’s book Formato tessera, a 1989 film by director Ettore Scola, Che ora è, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Massimo Troisi.



These two giants of Italian cinema play a reunited father and son who talk through their relationship over the course of the film. We’re happy to have these titles added to our list, and are always looking for more, so if you know of something we haven’t listed yet, please let us know.

As part of the 2009 International Photobooth Convention to be held in Chicago in April, we’ll be putting on a group show of art created in and inspired by the photobooth as well as collections of vernacular or found photobooth photos. 

We’ve posted a Call for Entries (PDF) which we encourage you to download and check out if you’re interested in submitting a piece or collection for the show. 

The text of the Call for Entries follows:

2009 International Photobooth Convention Group Show

CALL FOR ENTRIES

The 2009 International Photobooth Convention is now accepting entries for a group show at Center Portion in Chicago, Illinois, to be held April 3–4, 2009. The exhibition seeks to showcase artwork created in and inspired by the photobooth, as well as collections of vernacular or found photobooth photos. The show is open for entry to all artists working in any media, so long as they utilize or reference the photobooth. All entries will be included in an accompanying digital gallery on Photobooth.net, while selected artists will be asked to show their work at Center Portion for the duration of the Convention.

For review by the show’s curators, please submit digital files of your entry. Files should be in jpeg format at 300 dpi. Please provide a short bio, artist statement, and any other pertinent information (in PDF or .doc format). Digital files may be uploaded using the following address:

https://www.photobooth.net/convention/submit

Digital submission entry deadline: March 15th, 2009. Selected artists for the International Photobooth Convention Group Show will be contacted by March 20th with shipping instructions.

Please direct all questions to convention@photobooth.net

We look forward to your contributions to the event.

In the midst of planning for this year’s Photobooth Convention this week, we received a great email, of the sort that reminds us why we started this site four years ago. It’s about the booths, sure, but it’s also about the people who love them, who keep them alive, bring them back from the dead, and make them available for people to enjoy, all over the world. 

The email came from Martin and Ira in Moscow, the two photobooth enthusiasts behind Schnellfoto.ru (also listed in our Projects section).



Along with photos of a photobooth and a scan of a photostrip, they sent the detailed story of how the photobooth came to be, and it’s quite a story.

One of us (Ira) is a photographer from Moscow, the other one (Martin) a german journalist, living in Moscow for more than ten years. Ira got enthusiastic for classical photobooths when we visited Geneva some years ago (the swiss booths were still running at this time). About a year ago we started looking for a machine ourselves. We phoned around all over europe, but it showed out that nearly all booth operators had already switched to digital, and, horrible as it is, thrown away and destroyed the older machines.

After a phase of disenchantment, we did some more desperate calls in Moscow, and it showed out that one — the last — M‑22 had escaped the massacre by miracle, and was standing in the rain in the courtyard of a former soviet ball-bearing plant — some 2000 meters from our own house. We acquired it for a modest amount of money. Inside was a mayhem: flash generator and capacitors were stolen, as well as nearly all plugs, switches and other somehow vendible equipment, most of the cable harnesses were dumbly cut through. The mechanics (transmission, spider, paper transport, even camera) though were intact. Then followed three months of work in the evenings in a rusty soviet garage. We got a flash from an operator in europe, rebuilt all the rest ourselves, including wiring, money accepting system, outside decoration etc. etc.

The booth made its debut last summer for one day on the so-called “picnic Afisha” — the biggest summer festival in Moscow, with a huge success. Now, at the new location, we plan to stage different events with the machine — a portrait festival, a contest for the best strip, and Ira is going to use it in her work as a photographer.

You can find the location of the booth (at the Winzavod Contemporary Art Center in a former wine factory) on a Google map on the booth’s page in our Directory, but I’ll also include it here, in Russian, just because it looks wonderful:

ВИНЗАВОД — Центр современного искусства

4‑й Сыромятнический переулок, дом 1, стр. 6 

Москва

Россия

Their site is worth looking around (even if you can’t read Russian) for the photos of the booth in action and for the video of a Russian TV feature on the booth that includes a part on Anatol Josepho, the Russian father of the photobooth, as well as Martin and Ira in their booth.

We’re very pleased to have this new addition to our directory, and even more pleased to have made another far-flung connection with kindred spirits in the global photobooth community.

Photobooth.net and 312photobooth.com are very pleased to announce the 2009 International Photobooth Convention, a two-day event featuring photobooth art, workshops, lectures, projects, and of course, free photochemical photobooths. The event will be held at the Center Portion artist project space in Chicago’s Logan Square, Friday and Saturday April 3rd and 4th, 2009.

We were last involved in the International Photobooth Convention back in 2005 in St Louis, held just a few weeks after we launched Photobooth.net. In the four years since then, we’ve learned a lot and made a lot of connections around the world, which ought to make this year’s event even bigger and better than the last.

The convention is being organized by the same group that put the 2005 event together, Tim and Brian from Photobooth.net and Mr. Mixup, joined this time by Anthony Vizzari of 312photobooth.com, who is graciously sponsoring the event and organizing the event on the ground in Chicago.

We will be sketching out the schedule for the event over the next few weeks, so stay tuned to the convention page for more details as they’re finalized.

We hope some of our readers will be able to join us in Chicago, and for those who can’t, we’ll be updating the blog throughout the event, as well as following what’s going on through our Twitter account, so be sure to follow along if you’re interested.

For those interested in submitting work for our photobooth gallery show, we’ll be announcing our call for entries in the next few days. Please send any questions about the show, or the convention in general, to the convention organizers, and we hope to see many of you in Chicago in April!