It seems that for some critics, filmmakers have gone to the well one too many times with the photobooth montage. While we still enjoy seeing the photobooth scene recur in films as a testament to the enduring popularity of the photobooth, it has long been our contention that someone needs to try a new approach to using the booth. In a review of No Reservations on E! Online, Dezhda Mountz writes

From the fumbling-first-kiss scene to the inevitable photo-booth montage (shouldn’t these just be banned forever?), bits of the movie are simply overdone.

Photobooth Friday, the weekly online collaboration begun by Andrea and now with its own Flickr group, has of course caught our attention before.

Now Andrea’s local paper, the Portland Oregonian, has published a story on the group, which ought to lead to a whole lot of new interest and more submissions for the weekly pool. The article is online now, but will probably be gone soon, so you can check out the archived version here. Photobooth.net even gets a mention and a quote. Perhaps Andrea could share a scan or a PDF of the article so we can see the photo, as well — and see if all of those ellipses in the online version are really there?

After a very successful trip to Seattle, I had more modest hopes for our visit to Victoria and Vancouver, and was happy to come away with two booths in each city, opening up a new province in our Canadian listings.

The first two booths are located in the Bay Centre, the main shopping center in downtown Victoria. The first photobooth is located on the ground floor, next to the elevators, and is a Photome Studio Model 17P.

The second photobooth, also a 17P, is found in the food court on the fourth floor of the mall. Both are color machines that provide crisp images with white borders and a rounded frame on each photo (though the frame is more gray than white on this one).

Taking the ferry from Victoria, we transferred to a ferry to travel the rest of the way into Vancouver, and I stopped in the Model 17C photobooth at the Pacific Central bus and rail station.

Finally, in downtown Vancouver, the Pacific Centre Mall was home to another Model 17P booth, located in a passageway between the Pacific Centre and the Vancouver Centre. More white borders, rounded frames, and crisp photos.

Twin Cities-born and Brooklyn-based The Hold Steady have placed a solicitation for black and white photobooth pictures on their website, in preparation for production of their forthcoming single. 

In a post titled “The Hold Steady Needs Your Help” dated July 1, the band makes the following announcement:

The Hold Steady want you to scan and send in BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOBOOTH photos of you and your friends to photobooth@vagrant.com

The band will use the photobooth pictures for the artwork on their forthcoming new single as well as in the marketing for the release.

The photobooth photos NEED to be Black and White.

The post comes complete with a link to a release form PDF to be filled out by the contributor. Let us know if any loyal readers submit their photos to the band. We look forward to seeing the results, and now have one more reason to get our Music section started. 

A trip to Seattle last weekend brought the opportunity to expand and update our listings in this very photobooth-savvy town; thanks to the enthusiasm of friends and the patience of my wife, I hit ten locations in Seattle and Kirkland, all of which are run by Will Simmonds and Photobooth Services. I was in touch with Will before I arrived, and was able to confirm some locations before heading off on the hunt. Just to update, according to our research, there are no longer dip and dunk photobooths at the following locations that may have, at some point in the last five years, had photobooths:

Hotwire Cafe, Espresso Roma and Retro Viva in the U‑District, Fun House on 5th Ave., Hello Gorgeous, Earl’s On the Ave, Tommy’s Bar, The Duchess, Private Screening in Fremont., Pretty Parlor, and Neumo’s.

Now, if any of those places do still have dip and dunk photobooths, please let us know, and we’d be happy to update our listings. Now, on to the booths we visited this weekend:

Our first stop was Re-bar, a bar and club that was preparing for a heavy night of techno when we arrived, but was thankfully quiet and empty. A driver’s license left as collateral at the door was all we needed to avoid the cover and jam into the photobooth, located just inside the club area. 

From Re-bar, we headed up to Capitol Hill to the new location of the Cha Cha Lounge, downstairs from Bimbo’s Bitchin’ Burrito Kitchen. Having spent some good times (at the bar and in the booth) at the Cha Cha in Silverlake, I was excited to visit the original, or at least the newest incarnation of the original. The photobooth has some nice Cha Cha-themed decorations inside and colorful blankets for a curtain, and fits right in along with the tiki lounge/Mexican wrestling theme. 

Goldie’s on 45th was on my list, but I didn’t think we’d have a chance to stop by until we were driving by it, on our way to the High Dive. We had some time to kill, so we stopped in, caught the tail end of a tough air hockey match, and snapped some photos in their photobooth.

Our final stop for the evening was the High Dive in Fremont. It had a photobooth, but also happened to be the venue for a band that a friend of a friend belonged to, so I didn’t feel like I was dragging anyone there. We had a great night enjoying the music, and stopped in the photobooth on our way out. It was a fun night, and I was impressed, as I would be all weekend, that all of the photobooths we sought out were where they were supposed to be, and in good working order. Some of them had some messy chem stains in a couple of frames, and they all starting taking photos more rapidly than any other booths I’ve been in — hence the caught unawares look in the first photo of every strip — but they were all working fine, for which Will and Photobooth Services are to be commended. 

The next day, we headed over to Kirkland to meet friends, and hit the booths at Waldo’s and The Shark Club, both solid booths in unremarkable locations. 

On Monday, I met Will Simmonds and we headed to the Pacific Science Center, so he could show me his two special black and white booths. The first booth is professionally decorated with a dinosaur theme to match the “Colossal Fossils” exhibit going on this year; it’s also unique as it’s the first dip-and-dunk booth I’ve ever seen or heard of that accepts credit cards, which it did very well.

We headed across the Center campus to Building 3, where we stopped for awhile at the second photobooth on the site, which is a pretty interesting machine. It’s a traditional Model 20 with a twist: the “guts” of another Model 20, the photobooth minus the half with the stool and curtain, attached to the end of the photobooth and encased in transparent plexiglass, rather than the normal lightproof enclosure necessary for processing the photos. This second set of mechanical innards is electrically connected to the working booth, and mimics the process going on inside, complete with flashes, rotations of the spider arm, and everything else that happens to make the photobooth magic. The booth does not contain chemicals, nor does the paper make its way through the process, but the ability to see how the stages work while it’s happening inside the real booth at the same time is invaluable. Will explained that the demonstration booth would be getting more signage and lighting to help better explain the process, but it’s a great start. I had a great time meeting Will and talking about the business aspects of running a multi-state photobooth operation, and I applaud his commitment to the black-and-white photobooth.

Later on that day, I hit two more photobooths, to bring the Seattle-area haul to ten: first, I stopped in the Showbox downtown during box office hours and snapped a strip in their photobooth, and then, on our way to catch a Mariners game at Safeco, we stopped at Cowgirls Inc. to use their photobooth, tucked nicely between the semi-truck cab as dj booth and the Simpsons pinball machine. Nice. 

Next up, British Columbia…

Four directors of Photo-Me International have stepped down this week amid brewing trouble from a major shareholder, according to a BBC News article. Profits at the company have slipped, and a review is underway to determine if the company should split up its divisions, something we’ve covered here before.

Looking ahead, chief executive Serge Crasnianski identified some areas for growth driven by the increasing appetite for ID cards around the world.

He forecast that the introduction of a national health card this year in France could see demand for 50 million photographs, while 25 million photos could be required for tobacco cards in Japan.

Tobacco cards? That’s a new one for us.

We’ve made some additions and updates to the site this weekend, including three new (and one upgraded) music videos. Above, scenes from the first music video on the site, Aerosmith’s Crazy, as well as Jeremy Burgan’s Can You See Us? We’ve got much improved images from Crazy, and we’re happy to have Burgan’s video, which we saw being made out at the Cha-Cha Lounge one night, on the site. Below, we’ve got scenes from Modlang’s Factory Hour and Natasha Bedingfield’s Single, one from YouTube and one in high-def. Oh well, you take what you can get.



Also this week, we’ve got new locations in Long Beach, California, as well as three more Amy’s Ice Creams shops (one, two, three) in Austin, Texas. And finally, a new example of a photostrip in TV, from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s pre-Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz effort, Spaced.

Photobooth news from around the country this week, beginning in one of the few states that doesn’t have an entry in our Photobooth Directory: Nebraska. Omaha residents celebrated the recent opening of the new bar/club called Slowdown, part of the massive new Saddle Creek Records development that will include a new art-house theater (Film Streams) as well as restaurants and apartments. They’re probably focusing their enthusiasm on the fact that Slowdown will have a black and white photobooth when it opens this weekend, but we are. Does Omaha currently have a photobooth? Who knows? But according to this Omaha.com article, they will now, and we’re looking forward to getting our first contribution from the great state of Nebraska. (The booth is visible in a few photos in the gallery on Slowdown’s website).

Comedian Patton Oswalt, who can be heard very shortly providing the lead voice in the new Pixar film Ratatouille, is releasing his second comedy album, a follow up to 2004’s “Feelin’ Kinda Patton,” to be called “Werewolves and Lollipops.” Oswalt’s record label, Sub-Pop, is promoting the album by giving away 10 unique, signed photostrips to random winners drawn from among the first 100 people who pre-order the album. The photostrips are the result of a day when “Patton came into our offices and abused our photo booth”; who even knew Sub-Pop had a photobooth? 

Going a little further back, a found photostrip was Found Magazine’s “Find of the Day” for May 27.

And finally, we go still further back, to early May, and ask, What if they threw a photobooth party and we weren’t invited? Well, it happened, though I guess it wasn’t exactly a “photobooth party,” and there really wasn’t any reason for us to be invited. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art threw their annual “Modern Ball” on May 2, 2007, and according to various photos and accounts, the walls were covered with massive blow-ups of Andy Warhol’s photobooth pictures, and a black and white photobooth was on hand for free photobooth pictures for the attendees. Nice. Thanks to YumSugar for tipping us off with photos of the photostripped walls. Read an account of the party here, and check out the pages of photographer Mona T Brooks, who has photos from the ball for sale, including pictures of the photobooth being used and the photobooth decor that evening.

Photo of Patton Oswalt from subpop.com.

As we remarked about a few months ago, a photobooth that spent many years entertaining beachgoers in Asbury Park, New Jersey, has been on its way back home after 15 years at a store in Vermont.

Bob Crane from Save Tillie was kind enough to let us know that the booth is back just in time for summer and is being enjoyed by a new generation of beachgoers. The photobooth, a black and white Model 14, is located at the Shoppes at the Arcade in Asbury Park. For more information and photos, check out

the page on Save Tillie’s website about the return of the booth.

The photo booth from Asbury Park, New Jersey’s historic Palace Amusements has been returned to the Shore community, 15 years after it was sold to shop keepers in Vermont, and is now a major attraction at a Cookman Avenue store.

For over three decades, the Palace’s photo booth produced strips of four black and white wallet sized photos of visitors to the Shore side amusement park. Now refurbished by the Save Tillie preservation group, the booth is installed on the lower level of The Shoppes at the Arcade, 685 Cookman Ave.

“At a time when so much of the amusements history of Asbury Park is fading into memory, we’re thrilled to be able to bring back one of the Palace’s favorite attractions,” said Save Tillie president Bob Crane. “Photo booths are a timeless treat, and this one especially so for with everyone who enjoyed it at the Palace.”

The booth entered the Palace in the late 1950s and remained in operation there until the Shore’s largest indoor amusement park closed in late 1988. For a time thereafter, it operated at Sandy’s Arcade on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, and eventually was sold to Slim and Pamela Smith, a Jersey Shore couple who had moved to Burlington, Vermont where they operated a clothing store. The Smiths operated the booth in stores in Burlington and Bristol, before donating it to Save Tillie last winter.

Save Tillie member Dan Toskaner refurbished the operating mechanisms of the booth over the winter and spring, giving it a new strobe light and making other mechanical improvements. In appearance, however, Toskaner said the booth will be completely familiar to those who used it at the Palace, down to a collage of very old photo strips including pictures of employes of the Palace and Sandy’s Arcade.

Save Tillie was formed in July of 1998 by fans of Asbury Park, of the Palace and of Bruce Springsteen to save Palace artifacts, including three iconic wall murals, from the wrecking ball. By directive of the State of New Jersey, 35 Palace artifacts, removed when the National Register of Historic Palaces building was demolished several years ago, are in storage and must be reused on a new building that eventually will rise on the Palace lots.

We’re also happy to report that the Palace photobooth is also our first entry for the state of New Jersey. We look forward to more contributions this summer from Jersey Shore-goers out there. Thanks to Bob Crane and Dan Toskaner for the great news and for the photos of the booth and Tillie himself!

I had a day in New York this past week to check out some photobooths that had long been on Photobooth.net’s “to-do” list, as well as to see if some rumored booths were really where we thought they were. 

Taking a lesson from some previous, less successful outings, I did a lot of research beforehand to ensure that I wasn’t going out of my way to find a booth in a bar that had long gone out of business, or look for a chemical photobooth that was actually now a digital booth. So, for the record, as of June, 2007, here are some updates that I collected before leaving for New York:

• Jake’s Dilemma had a photobooth; it was digital, and now it is gone.
• Crocodile Lounge has a photobooth; it is digital.
• Pop Burger has something that is occasionally described as a photobooth, but is not.
• Gershwin Hotel has a photobooth, but it is digital.
• BB&R has a photobooth, but it is digital.
• Gallery Bar has a photobooth, but it is digital. I called to find out, and it was described as digital, “but like an old school aesthetic.” Still digital.
• Milk Studios only has a photobooth when they have parties, but don’t own their own. 
• Southpaw had a real photobooth, but now have a digital booth.
• Magnetic Field had a real photobooth, but very recently went digital; thanks to Raul for letting me know and saving me a trip. This is a real loss; the booth produced three photos per strip and made for many a happy bar-goer, it looks like. 

So, with those potential stops cleared up, my first stop was at the Victoria’s Secret store on 34th, thanks to a find on Flickr last week. Sadly, I was a little late, as a store employee showed me where the booth had been and told me it had been removed a few weeks prior. Oh well.

Next stop was Daffy’s in Soho, where I had heard from a number of sources that a real photobooth lived. Sadly, after looking in every nook and cranny, I asked an employee and he said it had been recently removed, and was perhaps seasonal. I wasn’t sure which season he would be referring to, but nevertheless, it was gone, and I was zero for two. Looks like there might still be a photobooth at the Daffy’s in Philadelphia; perhaps a reader in Philly can let us know and send in some photos.

I headed out to Brooklyn, hoping for greener pastures, and found success, finally, at Bubby’s in DUMBO, where, like Bubby’s in Tribeca, a wonderful black and white booth can be found next to the video games and the bathrooms. After a delicious lunch at Bubby’s, I went for a walk and picked up this week’s copy of the The L Magazine, with a cover photo and photos inside of photostrips (from Bubby’s and elsewhere). 

I took the train to Williamsburg, and headed once more to the Bushwick Country Club, where I’d had two unsuccessful attempts in 2005. The bartender unlocked the bar for me, and I spent an hour there as the only patron; it was a little early, but I was happy to finally use the booth and enjoy their two-for-one drink special. The photobooth had a BMX bike on top that was being raflled off, next to the velvet Elvis. Opposite the booth, the wall was covered with contributed photobooth strips showing Country Club members having a good time. Upon returning home, I was happy to discover that a Photobooth.net reader had contributed photos from the booth the day I left for New York, and we’ve used hers in our entry for the BCC. When it rains, it pours, I guess.