In an article published this week by the Associated Press and picked up by news organizations around the country (and in Canada), writer Ryan Kost takes a look at the current state of photochemical booths from the perspective on the ground at the Ace Hotel in Portland, Oregon, as well as with some words from Tim and myself. 

We’ve posted the article in our In Print section, and while it lasts, the article is available at a number of news outlets’ websites: ABC News, Newsday, OregonLive, Artdaily.org, The Asbury Park Press, the Batavia Daily News, and WRAL from Raleigh, North Carolina, among others. 

We’re curious if the article is actually in print anywhere, and would love to see a copy if anyone has actually held it in their ink-stained hands. Thanks to Ryan for the well-written article (and for not misquoting us), and welcome to those who are visiting us for the first time because of his piece. Have fun looking around!



Photo: AP/Don Ryan

Just in time for back-to-school shopping, we’d like to let everyone know about our Photobooth.net t‑shirts, available in a variety of styles and colors for him and her in our Spreadshirt Shop. Tim and I tried out the first versions during the Photobooth Convention a few months ago, and since then, readers all over the world have picked up their own shirts and, in some cases, sent us photos of them in the wild. We know you won’t all have quite such a dramatic backdrop, but if you’d like to send us a photo of you in your Photobooth.net shirt — in or out of the booth — we’d love to see it and post it on the site.



Thanks to the wonderful Martin and Ira of Schnellfoto in Moscow for the photo.

Thanks to a tip from Stephanie, we see that Time Out New York has updated its somewhat-annual New York photobooth article. In September of 2007, we noted a Time Out piece called “Strip Mining” that the author, Rachel Sokol, contacted us about as she was researching. Looking at that link again, it seems the 2007 article has been replaced by this new one, with the much more pedestrian title of “The city’s best photo booths,” by Anna Brand. Both articles list photochemical and digital booths, and neither seems to make much distinction between old style and digital. Eight of the eleven booths in the original article were photochemical; now the ratio has slipped to six out of ten photochemical booths in the new piece. The booths are at Otto’s, Lakeside Lounge, Bubby’s, Bushwick Country Club, Union Pool, and the Smith.

We’ve added a new Manhattan booth which apparently didn’t make the Time Out cut, a black and white booth at The Living Room. Thanks to Gabby for the photos and info.

We’ve posted the first of the backlog of submissions and new additions to the site since our hiatus; in the true spirit of summer, they’re locations at state fairgrounds and beachside boardwalks. 

Check out the black and white photobooths at the Minnesota State Fair in Minneapolis, as well as Jilly’s Arcade and Castaway Cove in Ocean City, New Jersey. Thanks to Tony for the Minnesota booth, and thanks to my friend Molly for doing what no other friend has, and following through on that promise: “Oh, you run a website about photobooths? Next time I see one, I’ll take a picture of it for you.“



Photo by Molly Wheeler

We seem to have taken a bit of an enforced summer vacation here at Photobooth.net, but thanks to some yeoman’s work from Tim, the three major functions of the site — the blog; the databases of locations, art, movies, and so on; and the discussion board — all seem to be back up and running. The discussion board is functioning again, though we’re still working on getting it looking sharp again. We’ll be rolling out a bunch of new locations, films, artists, and so on over the next few days, the backlog from a few months of no postings. Thanks again for your patience.

We apologize that the site has been somewhat dormant these past few weeks. Our webhost performed a migration, and once the dust settled, pretty much everything on our site was broken. Brian and I have been working hard trying to get things back in shape, and as of right now, the blog and its inner-workings seem to be alive again.

The only remaining issue we know of (please let us know if you find anything else that is broken) is the discussion board. When we created this site, we went with a discussion system that soon thereafter went dormant. Basically, we bet on the wrong horse. We are now trying to figure out if it makes sense to spend energy getting it back up and running, or if we should try to migrate the discussion history to a new, more up-to-date discussion board. Your opinions are appreciated.

We’ll keep you posted.

As our list of photobooth locations around the world has grown over the last five years, we’ve often thought of better ways to organize and present the information on the site. Some people like the big list of every single location we know of, but most people who use our site to find a photobooth are curious about booths in a particular city or state, or would like to see all of our photobooths plotted on a map. If you agree, well, this is your lucky day, because we’ve just launched a completely re-vamped Photobooth Directory with three ways to find what you’re looking for.

You can search for all photobooth listing that mention the word “arcade”; you can browse all photobooths in the state of Illinois, for those who will be attending the International Photobooth Convention this weekend; and you can also locate all of our photobooth listings on a map, which displays all of our locations arrayed around the globe.

We’re excited to get this much-needed feature out to the world before the start of the International Photobooth Convention, and we’ve got many more improvements to make and features to add in the future. Here’s hoping you find it useful.

Those of you who have submitted artwork for consideration should have heard back regarding our selections — if you haven’t drop us a line. We have also finalized the schedule of events. Limited editions of this silkscreened poster will be available for purchase at convention.

We’ve finally made the leap to the latest version of Movable Type after making do with a version from two years ago for far too long. Let us know if you see anything odd as we try to make sure everything is still working as it should.

Thanks to some new-found success locating old TV shows and some helpful contributions from readers, we’ve been making steady progress adding to the growing body of photobooth knowledge and information over the past few weeks.

First, from our contributors, two western American photobooths we’ve long heard of but haven’t had the chance to visit: the great old booth at Arcade Amusements in Manitou Springs, Colorado, seen at right. It’s one of those booths that’s been at its location “forever,” and we’re glad it’s still working.

Second, we received a report and photos from a Model 20A at

Stellar Pizza, Ale, & Cocktails, located in Seattle, adding to that city’s impressive tally of photochemical photobooths.

In the world of TV, we’ve added a few obscure and international shows over the last few weeks, including two British shows: an episode of “Midsomer Murders” and one from the BBC’s “The Smoking Room,” seen here:



On the domestic front, we’ve finally been able to get images from two long-standing photobooths-on-TV rumors: first, we’ve got Scooby-Doo, Dick van Dyke, and a photobooth, as the gang visits a “Haunted Carnival” (what else?). And finally, we’ve watched it so you don’t have to: an episode of “Power Rangers in Space” which lifts the “superhero caught changing from mild-mannered alter ego in a photobooth” plotline from Superman III.

Just an update to let folks know that through some nose-to-the-grindstone work on Tim’s part, we (think we) have solved the persistent and ongoing problem of spam comments in the Photobooth.net Discussion Board. Over the years, a lot of interesting questions and helpful answers have been posted on the board, but we’ve been subject to spam overload off and on, making it difficult to find the real messages amongst the chaff and noise. 

We’ve got some beefed-up anti-robot security in place now, and we think we’ve got the problem solved. We had to delete a few thousand spam accounts, so if you had registered but not posted, your account may have been deleted, for which we apologize. Most legitimate account-holders should have been spared, so head on over to browse around, ask questions, and offer up your answers and suggestions. Thanks.