The 2014 International Photobooth Convention is less than a week away! We’re all gearing up for a great event in Chicago, and can’t wait to see the international photobooth community descend on the Windy City for a weekend of art, fun, photos, and hardcore photobooth nerdery.

First, we have an updated schedule:

And second, if you’re interested in signing up for a slot in one of the three workshops offered during the convention, Photobooth Art Techniques, Photobooth Anatomy and Diagnosing Problems, and Photobooth Camera Outside of the Booth, head over to the A&A Studios Store to reserve and pay for your spot now before these space-limited events sell out. You can also purchase a three-day pass to the convention there, but don’t worry, if you don’t do it online, you can always purchase your convention admission in person. We’ll see you this weekend!

Our friend and longtime photobooth.net contributor, Meags Fitzgerald, just released her graphic novel entitled Photobooth: A Biography which she describes as an “illustrated history meets travel journal.” We would describe it as beautiful and ambitious. Several years in the making, the 280-page book is now available at North American comic shops and bookstores but you can get an author-inscribed copy here. Or better yet, come meet Meags and pick one up in person at the upcoming Photobooth Convention in Chicago.

Congratulations, Meags.

Not a week goes by here at Photobooth.net West without receiving an update or two (or ten) from our loyal and generous readers. We have a European-centric batch of contributions to present today, with a few American surprises.

First, we have a raft of updates from the folks at Photoautomat.de in Berlin. A number of booths have moved from previous locations, and fresh machines have debuted in new locations, as well.

Check out the new photochemical booths at the following locations:

• Kulturbrauerei
• Markthalle Kreuzberg
• Prenzlauer Allee
• Warschauerstraße / Revaler Str. I
• Warschauerstraße / Revaler Str. II
• Weserstraße

The fact that these booths are constantly moving and re-appearing in Berlin is a testament to their ongoing popularity, and Berlin remains one of the world’s great photobooth capitals.

We also have a few bits of photobooth media from Europe: a French print ad for an optician using a photobooth, a graphic novel by Jean Teulé called Filles de nuit, and the film Le scaphandre et la papillon, known in English as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

And finally, an Italian giallo, 4 mosche di velluto grigio.

Both the front and the back of the album “Les eglantines sont peut-etre formidables” by the duo Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem, uses photobooth photos, as well. Thanks to Les Matons for these updates.

Stateside, we have new photos of the redecorated booth and resulting photos from Jack White’s Third Man Records and Novelties in Nashville. 

Also, good news for Colorado: the state has another pin in the map at Fargo’s Pizza in Colorado Springs. Thanks to Brittany for both of these updates.

We’re also very happy to be able to add Nebraska to our list of states that can claim they’re home to a photobooth. 

If you’re headed to Slowdown in Omaha for a concert, a party, or a pub quiz, check out their black and white photobooth and give it a spin. Thanks to Robb for the update on this booth.

We have a few updates from American movies and TV, as well. 

First, a brief credit sequence appearance in the 1973 pickpocket drama Harry in Your Pocket, as the camera pans over the contents of pockets picked by the “cannon,” Harry (James Coburn).

Another more recent film, Safety Not Guaranteed, also features a brief photostrip moment.

Last month, thanks to Photoautomat.de, we made what to us seemed like a remarkable discovery: a mainstream American film starring perhaps the most critically acclaimed actor and actress of the last thirty years, with a scene set in a real photobooth, with real photobooth photos. How did Falling in Love, a 1984 film starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, escape our notice until now? We’re not sure, but it just goes to show there’s always more out there, and it encourages us to continue our quest to uncover more photobooths in cinema. 

And finally, we’ve got a 2013 commercial for Diet Coke starring its new creative director, designer Marc Jacobs (who has also had a photobooth or two in some of his stores)

It’s been a busy year for the photobooth. As 2012 comes to a close, we’re taking a look at what the last twelve months have brought in the the world of the venerable photochemical machine, now in its tenth decade of life.

Most notably, this was the year that audiences around Europe got to see the most comprehensive and significant exhibition on the history and art of the photobooth ever produced. Curated by Clément Chéroux, Sam Stourdzé, and Anne Lacoste at the Museé de l’Elysee in Lausanne, the exhibition was titled “Derrière le rideau: L’esthétique du photomaton,” or “Behind the Curtain: The Aesthetics of the Photobooth.” I was honored to be able to contribute to both the printed catalog and the exhibition itself, and I traveled to Lausanne for the opening in February. After Lausanne, the show traveled to Le Botanique in Brussels and then to Vienna, where it remains open for another two weeks at the Kunst Haus Wien.

Back in the U.S., another international photobooth event was on the horizon. Three years after our very successful event in Chicago we hosted another International Photobooth Convention. This time, we gathered two photochemical photobooths and a major collection of world-class photobooth art in the sunny confines of Venice, California, and enjoyed two nights and a day of photobooth fun. Read all about it here.

The 2012 Photobooth Convention led to our first official publication, a 25th Anniversary Catalog celebrating the past and present work of the pioneering photobooth artists who first displayed their art in Rochester, New York in 1987. Limited copies of the catalog are still available for purchase; you can order them here, along with signed and numbered copies of the beautiful poster for the show.

We finished up the convention with a terrifically fun photobooth crawl in a hired van around Los Angeles. 

As we do with every convention, we produced a collaborative project with those who attended. This time, it was a collection of Photobooth Shorts, movies told in just four photobooth frames. We still have a limited quantity of numbered copies left for sale; follow the link to get your copy.

On the site itself, we’ve had a busy year of updates. We continue to discover new photobooth locations ourselves, and learn about them from contributors all over the world. In 2012, we added 48 new photobooth locations, plus countless additions, corrections, and updates to other locations already in our directory.

2012 also proved that the photobooth craze in movies, TV, and print shows no sign of slowing. This year, we’ve added 24 new movies, 22 new albums, 21 new TV shows, 15 new magazine articles, 14 new commercials, 10 new music videos, and six new newspaper articles.

The year also saw 30 entries in our blog, from Jack White’s appearance on ‘American Pickers’ to more recent omnibus recaps of additions to our various collections of photobooth appearances around the world. 2012 also brought our first ever guest blog entry, a travelogue from Meags Fitzgerald about her epic European photobooth adventures. Visit our Archives to poke around the entries from the past year. 

If we can read anything into these stats and highlights, it’s that the photochemical photobooth is alive and well in 2012, thanks to the vibrant and committed community of enthusiasts around the world, many of whom we had the pleasure of meeting this year. 

Best Wishes from Photobooth.net for a joyous, peaceful, productive, and photobooth-filled 2013! (And Happy New Year from two of the youngest members of the Photobooth.net community, both booth enthusiasts in the making)

The wonderful exhibition of photobooth art and history known as “Derriere le rideau” opens in its third and final location this week, at the Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna, Austria.

The exhibition has been installed, the booth is set up, and the opening reception is tomorrow, October 9. The exhibition will run until January 2013, and we encourage anyone with an interest who hasn’t had a chance to see it in Lausanne or Brussels to take the opportunity now. The photographs and other works collected in the show will never be assembled in such a way again, and it’s a real sight to see for the photobooth enthusiast.

We look forward to hearing updates from those who attend, and we’d love to post photos and reports from the lucky visitors.

Thanks to Birna Kleivan for sending in a number of articles about the photobooth that she’s written in various Danish, Swedish, and English publications over the years. From the article on the photobooth for The Great Danish Encyclopedia to an interview with Jan Wenzel for an English interiors magazine, she’s covered a lot of territory.

Check out our In Print section for all of the new additions. Thanks, Birna!

It’s time to get some of these PDFs, scans, and links sitting in my To-Do folder up on the site in our In Print section. First, thanks to Victoria for letting us know about an article in the magazine Strongbox. It’s a nice piece, and features work and comments from Victoria, Marco, and others about what the photobooth means to them.

More recently, the trip to Switzerland yielded a few pieces for the site: first, the weekend guide section of the Lausanne paper Le Matin featured a nice two-page spread about the Musée de l’Elysee’s photobooth show.

I even had one moment of unexpected photobooth-ness, coming across these photos, taken in the Zürich booth, for Zett Magazine, a publication of the Zurich University of the Arts.

Boston’s Weekly Dig used photostrips on the cover of their nightlife issue back in February.

And thanks to Les Matons for more great contributions from France. This time, they’ve sent in a scan of a comic by Tronchet, showing his character Raymond Calbuth on vacation in a series of photostrips.

We’re just over a week away from the beginning of the 2012 International Photobooth Convention, for which we’re making what can only be described as feverish preparations. The booths are lined up. The shirts are ready. The posters are ready. The art is arriving. The catalog is being printed. The raffle prizes are being gathered. And soon, people will be flying from Paris and Nottingham, from Chicago and St. Louis, to join us in Venice for a weekend of photobooth fun.

While I have a second before full-tilt convention mania hits, I wanted to post about a new location we learned of this week: following quickly on the heels of the news about the new booth at Netil House in London, Paul Walker at the legendary Fred Aldous shop in Manchester let us know about their beautiful Model 17, now installed and working in their shop. We’re excited to learn about a third photochemical machine in the UK, and we hope more will join these three pioneers.

London’s getting a new photobooth, thanks to the gang at Photoautomat. Check out their blog for all of the details on their opening, which will take place tomorrow, Thursday, May 3 at Netil House.

Well, so it’s not quite here, but it’s been designed, it’s beautiful, and it’s going to press this week. We have the talented Jared Purrington to thank for the awesome design (and our buddy Keith to thank for hooking us up with Jared), and L.A.‘s Level Press to thank for the screen printing. The posters will be for sale at the convention next month, and any left over will be available for sale through the website. It’s getting closer, folks…