In the May 2005 issue of Reader’s Digest, the editors select “America’s 100 Best” falling in six categories: Legacies, Passions, Adventure, Innovations, Time Off, and Connections. In the Time Off section, old-fashioned photobooths are named the Best Snapshots. We most wholeheartedly agree.
For an interactive web-version of the article, click here, then click on the state of Texas.
French eBay is a treasure trove of photobooth paraphernalia, we’ve recently discovered. After nabbing a photobooth pin and Photomaton promotional brochure a few weeks ago, I came across this interesting item today: an adjustable photobooth seat, or “Tabouret de photomaton,” as they say in Paris.
The stool gives the choices of “Plus bas” and “Plus haut,” with instructions to “Réglez le siege” also printed on the seat. The seller describes the item as “super déco”; I would have to agree. I don’t know if it’s worth 100 euro, where the bidding starts, but it would certainly make a great conversation piece, or a nice replacement seat for an ailing booth.
It’s been a few weeks since a photobooth has been listed for sale on eBay, but today brings us a color booth sold by American Amusement Co. of Rossville, Georgia. The five day auction begins with an opening bid of one dollar and features no reserve price, so watchful enthusiasts out there could walk away with this one at a bargain price.
The seller doesn’t make any detailed descriptions of the condition of the machine, stating only that the machine “should work fine, just needs supplies.”
I know there must be a taxonomy of photobooth machines out there, but I’m not familiar with it at this point. I’d love to be able to describe this machine, and any others we come across, with some sort of name, series, number, year, or other category that would help us keep track of the fascinating differences among the machines.
As a way of catching up with blog-worthy material from the recent past, I’ll be posting some notes about articles and mentions that are worth noting but aren’t the newest of the new. The most useful and well-written article from a major paper in the past year is Rob Elder’s May 25, 2004 piece from the Chicago Tribune, “The strange allure of photo booths,” still available online. Elder provides an in-depth look at the history of photobooths, looks into the relationship between traditional booths and digital machines, and goes on a pub crawl with Photo-Me’s Gary Gulley. Also included are words from Nakki Goranin and the felicitously named James Photopoulos of Photo’s Hot Dogs, longtime home to a photobooth in Mt. Prospect, Illinois.
A true photobooth devotee, Elder combines his personal experiences and thoughts about photobooths with historical background and interviews. He captures the attraction many people have with booths in one of his opening paragraphs: “For me, finding a photo booth is like discovering a chocolate egg long after Easter has ended. They’re often stashed away in the forgotten corners of America, in the dusty backroom of bars or lost in aging arcades.”
In addition to the excellent article, Elder includes three photo galleries and a lengthy list of Chicago-area photobooths, which I put to use in my October, 2004 visit to the city.
Synthesizing articles from the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times into a brief catch-up, Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Gary Robertson discusses photobooths in his American Trends column today. Nothing new to report, but when we start seeing news reports about news reports, something must be newsworthy.
Bob Kevoian, co-host of the nationally syndicated morning radio show The Bob & Tom Show, got married this past weekend. The Indianapolis Star reports that the reception featured lots of great local music and a photobooth.
If Defamer thought the Times article was a buzzkill, wait ’till they read what the Orlando Sentinel has to say; let’s just say it involves comparing photobooths to “apple pie and baseball.” Titled “Back in the Picture,” the article in today’s Lifestyle section highlights some Orlando-area booths at Bar-B-Q-Bar and Eye Spy, and interviews the twenty- and thirty-somethings who use them. It also features words from Gary Gulley, once again, as well as Paul Kadillak, Babette Hines, and Nakki Goranin, “author of the forthcoming Photobooth Century: The History and Art of Photobooths of America.” Is this the book we’d been talking about, Tim?
The article mentions the requisite films (though it also manages to keep alive the myth that a photobooth makes an appearance in Parenthood, when it’s actually a photo developing stand) and gives a (very) brief history of the development of photobooths. Thank goodness we’re around to make note of everyone else making note of photobooths, that’s all I have to say.
In yesterday’s edition of the The Daily Targum, the Rutgers University student newspaper, the Inside Beat section takes a look at photobooths near the New Brunswick, New Jersey campus. The article goes into a bit of photobooth history, and then profiles booths at 7B, Otto’s Shrunken Head, and the Manhattan Mall, all in New York City, as well as an overview of booths on the Jersey Shore. It looks like the author did some good internet research, as elements of the descriptions bear marked similarities to descriptions found in the Doubleperf photobooth listings. So long as it’s not word-for-word, we’ll forgive the liberal borrowing in the name of greater photobooth awareness.
The paper also offered a companion piece that attempts to characterize photobooth images as we might see them in a film or on tv: “Box #1: Confused. How do we work this machine? Crap, I wasn’t ready. Alright, here we go.” Unfortunately, the authors seem to have little experience with an actual photobooth, as they describe photobooth strips as having five photos. I’ve seen some with two and some with three, but most feature the common four photos. Any five-photo booths out there, Tim?
The article continues, “Photo booths, as you will be reading in today’s cover story, are a thing of the past.” I think the point is exactly the opposite; photobooths are everywhere these days, one needs to simply look, or to use a certain online resource as one’s guide.
I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this before, but LA gossip blog Defamer calls the photobooth trend “colder than a Republican in Carrie Fisher’s guest room” thanks to the NYT article on LA’s photobooths reported here earlier. Citing the appearance of Dave Navarro in the article as well as some other ways in which the article fails the litmus test of LA cool, Defamer says that Brett Ratner’s photobooth mania is the straw that killed the trend. We’ll see about that.
“Please take 2 sets of fotos, 1 4 U, 1 4 our host!” So the sign apparently read outside a photobooth at a party held to celebrate Prince’s NAACP Vanguard Award last week. According to reports, the booth was set up outside the building and guests were encouraged to take photos to leave for the host.