I am still trying to track down some video, but Andrea Avery alerted me to a photobooth story that aired this morning on the CBS News Sunday Morning show. I did manage to find this blurb:

I stopped by Nini’s Corner yesterday to pick up a Sunday New York Times. I guess it’s been awhile since I bought one, but $4.50?! Isn’t there a discount for day-old news, like Bruegger’s has for bagels? Anyway, to follow up this weekend’s post about the article Why Hollywood Says Cheese, I present scans of the article. Click each image for a more readable copy. From the images in the continuation, it looks like there was something funky in the chemicals in the booth Pat O’Brien and Hilary Swank used, or she was wearing a veil in one of the shots.

Are we at critical mass yet? The Sunday New York Times for tomorrow (gotta love online access) will feature a big article on photobooths in Los Angeles, with words from Brett Ratner, Dave Navarro, and Gary Gulley — the usual suspects — as well as some news of previously unknown (to this author) booth locations. Read the story by Strawberry Saroyan (what a name; related to William? Ed. note: yes, grand-daughter) and see a few pictures; I’ll look for the print edition for some scans, as I bet there are more snaps in the paper itself. I spoke with Gary a few weeks ago and he gave me a preview of the Golden Globes appearance, though I forgot to do anything about it. 

I had lunch with my friend Nate, whose absent brother has a subscription to Sports Illustrated (notice how I try to separate myself from this magazine). We located the Swimsuit Issue and I carefully removed the photobooth pages for my growing file. Two things of interest: (1) the photobooth used to take the pictures is in need of some attention — pictures are muddy and out of focus signaling time for a chemical change, and (2) a few of the photographs are faked! A pic by pic dissection:

Page 22
These three look legit. However, the first one (Ana Beatriz Barros) seems like it was taken at a different time. Much whiter whites, blacker blacks.

Page 24

Legit. Yamila Diaz-Rahi’s strip looks like it was pieced together from a few different sittings. (irregular border) [It is probably not a great idea to use “Yamila Diaz-Rahi” and “strip” in the same post — could unwittingly drive mega-traffic to this site]

Page 26

The Michelle Alves series seems also pasted together from a few different settings. The border is messed up.

Page 28

These all look like they were taken in a booth, but Michelle Lombardo’s strip looks like it originated in a digital machine, while the others look like good old photochemical.

Page 30

Jessica Van Der Steen’s is most definitely fake. Too bright, too close, too clear. Can you say “glamour shots”?

Last page of magazine

These photos obviously did not come from a photobooth, but the distinctive photobooth black frame was used for continuity.

A classic photobooth that looks like it’s about to be overrun with flora and Christmas kitsch is being put up for auction on eBay.

The booth, currently located in Gillette, Wyoming, is described as having “rounded corners” and “all 3 curtains,” and, what’s more, it’s said to be (in classic eBayspeak) “a GREAT buy and A EVEN BETTER COLLECTORS ITEM!”

A dozen photos show the details of the booth, which is in indeterminate condition; it looks like it’s mostly all there, but who knows how close it is to actually working. Maybe Tim can lend his expert eye to the case.

Last week, a photobooth from neighboring Nebraska was sold on eBay as well.

I haven’t seen it yet with my own eyes, but various friends and family have alerted me to the presence of photobooth pictures for each of the models in the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of the pictures on the SI website.

In related news, the February 14, 2005 issue of SI (p 35) displays a page of Pro Bowler headshots purportedly taken in a photobooth. However, they don’t look like pics from an authentic booth to me. My guess is the photographer (Tim Mantoani) set up some sort of makeshift booth with a digital camera and hung a curtain behind the players.

Sports Illustrated can’t get enough of the photobooth.

Stuff (New Zealand) reports on the debut novel by television writer David Wolstencraft this week. The creator of the popular show “Spooks” (known as “MI‑5″ in the U.S.) has written a novel about — what else — espionage, titled Good News, Bad News. The story apparently centers on two agents, who are ordered, “apparently by bureaucratic error, to work together in the same photo booth in a London Underground station.” Now, I assume the writer means one of the hundreds of photobooths foundin Tube stations all over London, but what kind of work are two people going to do inside a photobooth? Guess I’ll have to read to novel. 

Last week, another photobooth was sold at auction on eBay, this time for the sum of $1691.66. Before being sold, the photobooth was located P. O. Pears restaurant in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The description of the booth seems to make more of a deal about the item being from the “World Famous P. O. Pears” (which, according to their website, is a “Good Food & Good Time Saloon. A Lincoln landmark that has stood like a guardian over the intersection of 9th & M Streets since 1980. That’s two and a half decades of Burgers & Beer”), rather than the fact that it’s an old photobooth. It’s described as an “Auto-Photo Studio Model 14,” with serial #4320. I feel like photobooths are slowly making their way from five-and-dimes and restaurants in the Midwest to hip bars in Williamsburg and San Francisco. I wonder where this one will end up.

A New York Times article titled ‘Urban Studies: Where the Kids Are, and Were’ describes the arcade on Mott Street in Chinatown, and mentions the existence of the photobooth there. Having just returned from a trip to the City, the timing is a little frustrating — I’d always assumed the booth had disappeared — but I’ll add it to the list for the next time around. 

If you find yourself in Edinburgh in the next few months, head over to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for the

Andy Warhol Self-Portraits exhibition, which opened this week. A review of the show in the Herald gives an overview of the pieces in the exhibit, which include Warhol’s famous photobooth self-portraits.

The exhibition closes May 2.

Another article on the exhibition, from Scotland on Sunday, mentions Warhol’s “early works and the original photo-booth snapshots on which they were based.”