The final day of the convention started off with a talk by Jen and Marco about their Photobooth Technicians Project followed by a Q&A. Then we were off to see a slate of photobooth-centric films at Anthology Film Archives. The team at Photobooth.net had to get back to their families and were not able to join the final event of the convention, a boat cruise around NYC. Another convention comes to a close.
The convention rolled on with a busy and energizing day on Saturday, including a trip to the Classic Photobooth warehouse in New Jersey, time in the booths at AUTOPHOTO, and an evening at Union Pool with talks by Tim and Emily and a performance by Hercusleaze.
The day is finally here! The convention kicked off with a mixer this evening at Lou’s Athletic Club in Brooklyn. Swag bags were distributed and merriment ensued.
Another action-packed day.
The 2023 convention has begun! Thanks to our hosts for a wonderful opening event at the studio last night.
We were so saddened this week to hear from Christian Bonifas, one half of the photobooth art duo Les Matons, that his partner Hélène Fabre passed away on December 8 at the age of 56.
For nearly thirty years, Les Matons created a huge body of work based on photobooth photographs, which culminated in a final exhibition at the Bibliothèque de Carré d’Art in their home city of Nîmes, France, in October 2019.
In addition to their immense creative work and publication, Hélène and Christian have been some of the most steadfast and prolific contributors to Photobooth.net, beginning shortly after I first corresponded with them in 2007.
We owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and send our heartfelt best wishes to Christian.
A piece in Nîmes Gazette Live touches on Hélène’s life and contributions. In translation,
Half of Les Matons is no more. Wednesday, December 8, Hélène Fabre died suddenly at the age of 56. With Christian Bonifas, Hélène formed Les Matons from 1988 to 2017, a duo of artists using photobooths as a means of expression.
“Their work is both simple and poetic. Their photos are fueled by objects, props, and clothing. There is a real aesthetic and joy,” commented gallery owner Pascal Adoue de Nabias at a retrospective in May 2019.
That same year, the Carré d’Art library presented their work as part of the 20th anniversary of Documentary Film Month.
At La Gazette, where she wrote the exhibition pages and part of the cultural agenda for twenty years, Hélène leaves a void much larger than her discreet presence.
Her funeral will take place on Wednesday, December 15th at 4pm at the crematorium of Nîmes.
I was lucky to have met Christian and Hélène at the Derriere le rideau exhibition in Lausanne, Switzerland, in February of 2012, where we took the somewhat poorly executed photostrip at right.
Passing on this sad but not unexpected bit of news from Rafa at Autofoto:
Dear friends,
I hope this email finds you and your loved ones well.
We are living extremely disruptive times and need to follow the scientists advice. So we are taking the inevitable decision of postponing the International Photobooth Convention this June. We can assure you we will be holding a convention in London in the not too distant future—we can’t wait to welcome you to our amazing city!
We’ll announce the exact date when we have all recovered and are ready to celebrate
I hope you all keep safe (and sane).
Let’s keep in touch,
Rafa and the AUTOFOTO team
June 12–14, AutoFoto is hosting the 2020 International Photobooth Convention. The event will see photobooth artists, technicians, enthusiasts, and historians from around the world descend on London to enjoy the selection of analogue photobooths available in the Capital.
To accompany the Convention, a number of exhibitions will be held in various venues. Consequently, the event organizers are looking for submissions of artwork made in analogue photobooths since 2010. Artwork can consist of a single strip or multiple strips, but must have been made in an analogue, photochemical photobooth. Works made with mixed media will be accepted, as long as the photobooth strip is featured.
In 2010, Instagram began, and with it, the selfie became a phenomenon. This open call seeks analogue selfies taken in the photobooth, a machine often associated with ID photographs. The machine creates four exposures, one after the other in quick succession, traditionally portraying the head and shoulders shot which has become so integral to identity. But, once the curtain is drawn, this enclosed space allows a freedom of expression. A few of these rare machines still exist, and are being used in creative ways by artists across the world. The event will showcase this work, as well as encourage new work to be made for the purpose of this exhibition.
Submission information:
There is no fee for this submission.
Please submit up to 5 images, 1000 pixels along the longest edge, to ipc20@autofoto.org
Please include where and when the images were made.
Deadline: 1 April 2020
Final Artwork Specification:
Final images must be able to fit in an A3 sized space
Mixed Media is accepted.
Please note selected works may be used for promotional purposes.
We’re pleased to report some exciting news: 2020 will see another International Photobooth Convention, this time in London, presented by AUTOFOTO, who manage a network of analog photobooths in the U.K. and Spain.
The Convention will be held Friday to Sunday, June 12–14, 2020, in London. As usual, the title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the event will be a relaxed get-together of people who love analog photobooths, featuring talks, screenings, art projects, and a London photobooth tour. The organizers ask those who plan on attending to RSVP via email.
This announcement is also a good opportunity to report on the last of my 2019 European photobooth visits, back in October. I met Rafa and Marco of AUTOFOTO at the Hoxton Hotel, where we hung out, talked photobooths, brainstormed about the convention, and took some photos in the booth in the hotel’s lobby.
I also stopped by their booth at Mercato Metroplitano, another nice booth in a great location. I was pleased to see a reinvigorated photobooth scene in London, especially after bearing witness to the death of the old photochemical establishment era in shops and post offices back in 2004.
I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting other like-minded photobooth lovers in London in June, and hope to see some of our readers there.
We heard the sad news yesterday that photobooth artist, Super 8 filmmaker, and gentle soul (and much more) Herman Costa passed away on September 17. Herman was the first artist we added to the Art section of the site back in April of 2005, in honor of his position as the cover artist of the catalog for the 1987 “Photomaton” art show in Rochester, New York (A Portrait of Neil Gordon, 1986).
When we put on a 25th anniversary edition of the show and reprinted the catalog with updates on all the artists, Herman was not only eager to participate, but he connected me with Linda Duchin, who, along with the late Bern Boyle, put the original show together. Herman’s help was invaluable in making the anniversary edition a success. He was excited to tell, as he put it, “The Full Story of Herman Costa Goes to the Photobooth,” and we printed most of his text in the 2012 edition of the catalog, with a few new photobooth images he’d made since, including this terrific one, Self-Portrait as Matisse in Morocco (1992).
On a personal note, I crossed paths with Herman in my other life as a film preservationist, and just this week finished work on a 1975 film he appeared in, Screentest, directed by our mutual friends Frank and Caroline Mouris. Photostrips can be seen decorating the walls of his apartment, and anyone who has seen his photobooth work will recognize his mischievous personality in the film. 
Screentest (Dir. Frank and Caroline Mouris, 1975)
I wish I’d had a chance to show him the newly restored version, in which his scenes of roller skating on the Coney Island boardwalk in winter, and “licking” his mustache off (thanks to Frank’s stop-motion photography) look better than ever. We’ll miss you, Herman.