Thanks to a tip and photos from my cousin Jo, Photobooth.net has caught wind of a window display at the 

Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco in which manequins mingle around a photobooth presumably waiting their turn. The text displayed on the window reads “The Photobooth Project by Christopher Irion.” On first glance, it seemed that Irion might be the designer of the clothes being modeled by the manequins, but Dr. Google informs us that Irion is a photographer who travelled the country with a portable digital photography studio taking more than 600 portraits. This he dubbed “The Photobooth Project.” It is unclear whether the booth is available inside Saks or the portraits Irion took are on display in the store.

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Today’s New York Times brings us the story of Jacques Vidal, an artist who is organizing what he calls a “surrealist county fair” in the Metro Mall in Middle VIllage, Queens. The fair, which takes place April 1, will feature a “chewing gum brain,” erupting volcanoes a la the second grade, and posters and sculptures, all in an “absurd space where all is equal.”

He later said, “The final product will be among the most confusing and jarring public art events in recent memory placed in the context of a forgotten Queens relic.” The exhibit will take place at a food court where all but one restaurant has closed. A partly lighted sign advertises Weight Watchers. Near a GNC and Sam Goody (“Store closing, entire store on sale!”), a cardboard Statue of Liberty beckons one past a storefront dentist to Liberty Tax. A photo booth waits. There is the sweet scent of Subway bread baking.

The story is illustrated with a photostrip of Vidal held in front his face, taken by James Estrin for the New York Times. We hope the organizers are aware of the power the photobooth held for the Surrealists; they can read all about it in this 2004 Guardian article.

In conjunction with a new exhibition of the paintings of David Hockney, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has temporarily installed a photobooth, the Boston Globe reports. In the article, which centers on the photobooth itself rather than the exhibtion, reporter Deborah Fineblum Raub describes the booth as an opportunity to make art after seeing it, “at $2 a pop.” More than 1500 visitors have used the booth since it was installed when the exhibition opened in February. MFA Director Malcolm Rogers, through a spokeswoman, is quoted saying 

Our vintage photo booth allows our visitors — compelled by the candidness and immediacy of Hockney’s portraits — to create their own black and white portraits.

The exhibition closes May 14, 2006; I’ll be visiting in April when I’m next in Boston, and invite any of our Hub-area readers to do the same and let us know how it goes. 

Thanks to a busy few weeks from contributor Ricky Romero, the listings in our Photobooth Locator for the state of California have exploded to a total of 28 booths, the most for any state we currently list. Ricky contributed 19 locations, nearly all in working order as of this winter, from Los Angeles, Burbank, Santa Monica, and other southern California locations.

In December and January, he visited Kmart 3699 in Apple Valley, Downtown Burbank Newsstand,

Boomers! in Fountain Valley,

Lucky Strike Lanes, The Downtown Standard Restaurant , Edendale Grill, Short Stop, Union Station (and again), Bay Arcade in Newport Beach, Golf ‘n Stuff (two booths), Paseo Colorado, Castle Park, Roller City 2001, Playland Arcade, (again, two booths), Café 50s, and Boomers! in Upland. Wow.

Our thanks go to Ricky for all of his hard work, and we encourage readers to submit more photobooth locations to our database, now containing more than 150 locations around the world.

A five day trip to Austin last week netted eight photobooths around the city, six of which live in various locations of Amy’s Ice Creams around town. I called a random location before I arrived and was told that three locations had photobooths, but as I went from one to the next, I learned from the helpful folks behind the counter about other locations with photobooths as well. Unfortunately, of the six locations I visited last week, only two had working photobooths. I can imagine it’s pretty tough to keep a fleet of old classics going all the time, and we applaud Amy and Steve for the great work they’ve done in keeping photobooths alive in Austin. 

My first afternoon in town, I took a walk down 6th to Waterloo Records, Book People, and the 6th Street Amy’s. Their photobooth, a black and white Auto-Photo Model 20, produces a photostrip that is a solid 3/4″ shorter than a regular strip, meaning each photo is a discernible fraction shorter than a traditional photo. I can’t remember seeing a strip like this before; I’m curious as to how and why it’s so much shorter. The photos I got had an appealing sepia tone, but also a lots of cloudiness around the edges.

Next up, Caroline and I hit Chuy’s that night, and tested out their wonderful Model 11 complete with Elvis cut-out standing on top. Nice rounded bottom corners on the photos, which turned out a little fuzzy. 

From Chuy’s, we set off to the Dobie Mall, where we found the typical grey-striped color photobooth in the basement, with a digital booth by its side. The photos turned out fine, but the transmission treated the strip a bit roughly, and left the bottom and sides creased and wrinkled. 

For the last stop of the evening, we headed up to Amy’s Ice Creams on Guadalupe, and found another nice Model 20 that was unfortunately out of order. 

We discovered along the way that the photobooths I saw mentioned online at MugShots and another bar whose name I can’t remember (Jackalope — thanks, Caroline) turned out to both be digital.

The last day I was in town, Caroline helped me out on my quest once again as we hit four more Amy’s locations, though we only found one working booth. We started at the Super South location, home to a Model 14 black and white machine, and then proceeded to the Westgate location, where we found a working Model 20B with beach-towel curtain, plus lots of photobooth photos on the wall.

The search came to a close with two locations north of town, at the Arboretum, where the helpful staff warned us the booth wasn’t working, and even opened up the machine, a nice rounded model. The machine when through the motions, but it turned out there was no paper left. From the Arboretum, we headed up to The Wood, where we found out last booth, a nice un-numbered model with the great “miniature portaits” advertisement on the ends. 

Despite the lack of photostrips to show for it, the trip was a great success, and I left very impressed with Austin’s photobooth population. I’m sure I missed a few, and I look forward to a return trip to catch a few of the machines that were out of order this time around. Thanks to Caroline for playing along — it was a lot of fun.

Just in time for Halloween, a story of a photobooth that took pictures on its own. At the Trails store on Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona, 

The photo booth that used to be in the Trails store had to be removed due to the machine taking pictures when no one was in the booth. The developed pictures often showed nothing but a bright white ball of light, whether someone was in the booth or not. 

This, according to “someone who worked in the building for years,” so says the story available here at Originaltales.com, but also here, here, and here.

This weekend’s trip to Pittsburgh yielded a photobooth, photobooth art, photobooth as publicity, and a photobooth photo as official street signage. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I visited the Warhol Museum, home to an excellent Auto-Photo Model 14C in the basement.

The booth, nestled under the stairs at the far end of the lower level, provides nice, crisp, high-contrast photos, with a very white background. Both sides are open, and the booth is set a foot or so away from the wall, allowing for a little room on the far side for a number of people to gather in the booth at one time; our record for identifiable people was six in one shot. Across the hall from the booth is a marker denoting the high-water mark during a recent flood; apparently, the booth was damaged but the Warhol either repaired it or got a new (old) one. I’d love to hear the full story.

On the first floor, I enjoyed three works by Warhol that began as photobooth photos: silkscreened portraits of Ethel Scull (1963), Judith Green (1963–64), and Bobby Short (1963):



After viewing the museum’s seven fascinating floors, I headed down to the basement to use the photobooth, and checked out the “Weekend Factory,” described on the Warhol’s website as a “lively studio program where museum visitors can create art while exploring Andy Warhol’s artistic practice.” I took the photostrip I’d just taken, photocopied it, took some highlighters to it, and made a Pop button out of it for a mere 50 cents. What a bargain!

While I was in the “Factory,” I also spotted the Warhol’s Education Programs pamphlet, which features eight photostrips on the front and back cover. Very nice.

As I headed out Sandusky Street and over the 7th Street Bridge to get a view of the skyline and ballparks, I noticed that the bridge had been officially re-named the Andy Warhol Bridge, complete with colorful signs taken from his photobooth self-portraits. I’d venture that this is the only example of a photobooth photo used in an official city sign. But I’d be happy to hear otherwise. With such a ripe climate, all I need is to find some more photobooths in the Pittsburgh area. This can’t be the only one.

Thanks to a tip from Mr. Bernstein in the New York Press, I made a point of stopping by Habana Outpost in Brooklyn when I was in New York this weekend. Their photobooth is a great black and white machine nestled nicely into the wall, and though the photos were a little messy, I highly recommend stopping by this great location to try out the booth for yourself.

Once I was in the neighborhood, I realized that the Atlantic Center mall was not far from the Outpost, and recalling the my unsuccessful June visit, I stopped in to check out their booth. I managed to avoid the mall security and catch the booth when it was fully functional, though it was missing the all-important curtain, which made for a somewhat unsettling photobooth experience.

Having had great luck so far, I tried one more location, the elusive Bushwick Country Club, also in Brooklyn. I had noted the hours of operation online the last time I visited, and found out they were inaccurate when I showed up in person, so this time, I called ahead. I was told they’d be open by 5 pm on Saturday, but when I stopped by at 5:30, they were once again closed. Oh Bushwick, when are you really open on the weekends, and will we ever get to try out your photobooth?

Trips to the now-next door metropolis of Toronto over the last two weekends have yielded our first Canadian entries in the Photobooth Locator. Not as many as I’d hoped, but it’s a start.

Last weekend, I stopped by the Drake Hotel to check out their nice old black and white booth, which was, as most reports had warned me, sadly out of order. We also visited working color photobooths in Union Station and the Bloor-Yonge subway station.

This past weekend, we returned to Toronto, and visited two more booths in the city, both in the lower level of the Toronto Eaton Centre Mall: one in the food court and one near the entrance to the subway. After heading back to New York from the city, we passed through Niagara Falls, Canada, the one example of a border town where the American side is actually calm and normal and the foreign side is a nightmare of over-developed commercialism. Anyway, we found three photobooths, all beautiful old black and white models, but also all sadly in different stages of being out of order, in the Skylon Tower observation tower and restaurant. The first booth, in the basement, was closed “for cleaning” and looked pretty lifeless. The second booth, also in the arcade level, was on and accepted our eight quarters, but then went no further. And the third, in the main floor next to the “pose for a photo in a barrel” stand, had no power at all, despite a cashier’s best efforts to turn it on for me.

A new week brings a new restaurant review from Joshua Bernstein in the New York Press, and if past reviews are any indication, we’re likely to find a photobooth in the venue Mr. Bernstein has chosen for his review. 

This week’s review doesn’t disappoint, as he takes on Habana Outpost, a “parking lot-cum-restaurant-cum-bar” in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The restaurant features “… water fountains, indoor murals … a black-and-white photo booth and a former postal truck rigged with a kitchen and griddle to pump out inexpensive tortas, hot dogs and corn on the cob.” Sounds like a great setup; I’m planing a trip to the booth when I’m in New York at the end of next week.