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.

Apple Computer announced their new line of iMac G5 computers today, and included with the new machines is an application called Photo Booth that will take advantage of the built-in iSight camera to help the user take self-portraits and send them to friends.

From MacRumors. com, a description of the new application:

Photo Booth turns your iMac into a modern-day arcade photo booth (minus the coin slot). Just pick a special effect like sepia tint, x‑ray, bulge or squeeze. And smile. Presto — instant high-quality photo. Once you have the perfect pic, take advantage of Photo Booth’s connections to share it via Mail, save it in iPhoto or use it as your Address Book or iChat buddy picture.

How does Stunt Software feel about the name, I wonder?

This is a fairly old story, but one we had yet to cover here on Photobooth.net. On March 13, 2005, CBS News aired a segment about photobooths on their “Sunday Morning” show, featuring interviews with, among others, Babbette Hines, Brett Ratner, and Sonny Pham from Photo-Me. Host Bill Whitaker visited various photobooth locations in the Los Angeles area, and spoke with Ratner about his booth, his friends, and his book.

The online version of the story, titled “Fun and Freedom in the Photo Booth” is a transcription of the dialogue from the piece. Strangely, it did not appear online until July 31, 2005, for unknown reasons.

Host Charles Osgood and correspondent Bill Whitaker take a needlessly naive approach to the photobooth, with ‘aw shucks’ phrases like the opening line from the report: “Those cheesy, old photo booths from everybody’s past, you know, the ones from strip malls and bus stations? Those old things are making a comeback. Suddenly they’re trendy, they’re hot.” To their credit, though, the CBS team do manage to cover a number of recent appearances by photobooths in the mainstream media, and they talk to some key players in the recent resurgence of the booth. We also see many shots of people getting into and emerging from photobooths, one of which, after careful scrutiny, I’ve identified as the photobooth at Union Pool in Brooklyn.

Rightly or wrongly, Brett Ratner takes a lot of credit for the popularity of the photobooth — Whitaker tells him “Your idea is taking over the world” and he doesn’t argue — and he ends the piece with this bit of wisdom: “Nothing else could have afforded me the meaningful moments and more instant gratification than that simple, beaten up, magical booth” — the last line of the foreword to his book.

UPDATE: Contrary to the opening line of this entry, we had in fact covered this story before; Tim made a note of the fact that the story aired, but found no more than a quick sentence about the report on the CBS website. Three months later, a full story appeared online, and three months after that, I finally got around to mentioning it. All in good time.

In the last week, on my street alone, I’ve come across three interesting examples of advertisements featuring photobooth strips as an integral part of their message. Now, admittedly, I’m keeping my eye out for this, but it’s still a remarkable fact, proof that at least in the advertising world, the photobooth isn’t going anywhere.

The first example comes from a shop about a block away that sells everything from gourmet candy to housewares to high-end body products. Atop a tower holding Kiehl’s hair products, I spied a promotional pamphlet with four photobooth photos on the back. When I picked it up and looked at it, I found out that it held half a dozen cards inside, each with a different person modeling a different conditioner, mousse, or gel in a photobooth.

The second advertisement I spotted in Spin Magazine as I waited to get my hair cut a little further down the same street a few days later. An ad for Journeys, a clothing and shoe retailer, it showed a security tub full of a traveler’s possessions about to go through an airport x‑ray machine. Thrown in with some Adidas products and travel-related items was a strip of four black and white photobooth photos.

FInally. a more homegrown kind of ad: as I’ve walked out of my house to go to school every day this past week, I’ve spotted a handmade flyer for a show that happened in the area on September 24th. The Know-How, a Florida-based ska band (supported by a band with a simply great name, the Levar Burtones) use a strip of photobooth photos as the only image on the flyer, which is taped to a power pole on my street.

Kiehl’s, Journeys, and the Know How: great minds think alike?

An Auto-Photo Studio Model 20 black and white photobooth has been made available on eBay this week. We failed to see the item for a few days, but it’s up for another 36 hours or so, so if anyone is interested, the bidding is currently at $2150.

The photobooth, described as “works good,” is currently in Ocean City, Maryland, and is illustrated with a half-dozen haphazard photographs. Let’s hope this isn’t one of the few remaining Ocean City booths departing for good before we’d even had a chance to visit them.

In addition, the seller of this booth is also offering a rebuilt transmission for a model 14 photobooth, currently at $150, with no bids (and no photos or detailed description).

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?

The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book (don’t be fooled, it’s a catalog) came out today, and the rumors we heard are true: for a mere $20,000 you could be the proud owner of a custom-designed vintage color photobooth. Based on the photograph in the catalog, it looks like they have done a nice job retro-fitting the outside of the booth, but to the careful observer, the handiwork of Tom Rockowski is still quite evident.

Though it is new to me, it looks like Neiman Marcus has a section in each year’s catalog (er… book) dubbed “Fantasy Gifts.” We are proud that the photobooth is getting the respect it deserves and is included in this year’s selection of gifts alongside such items as a private concert by Sir Elton John ($1.5 mil), a prototype of a personal flying machine ($3.5 mil), and a life-size Indy500 simulator ($65,000).

If any of you decide to fulfill said fantasy, let us know — we’d love to see what they did to the inside and get a better glimpse of the new side panels. And just so you know: Brian and I would prefer you not spend that much money on us for Christmas, but since it is for a good cause, we would be willing to make this one exception.

Update: The Neiman Marcus photobooth has been getting some press, including mentions in sources as varied as The Boston Herald (“…delivers classic strip of four photos, just like the one at the carney”) and Harlingen, Texas’ KGBT 4 News (“…a customized Neiman Marcus exterior and is high-tech enough to ensure I‑D quality color photographs”).

It’s time for a new category here on Photobooth.net: poetry. This week I came across the first example I’ve seen of poetry about the photobooth, a work called “Photomaton,” published online in the first issue of Elixir Magazine. The poem, by Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, describes an experience with a “two euro” photobooth in a Paris Metro station. The poem has not shown up on Ranson-Polizzotti’s page of audio files of poems, but we’ll provide a link if it does. 

Photo-Me International is in the news again (see a previous story or two); this time, it’s their board of directors that is under scrutiny, described in the Guardian as an “old boy’s network.” The story concerns Conservative Member of Parliament Hugo Swire’s position on the board, something The PIRC Corporate Governance Service doesn’t look kindly on.

I was initially confused by the name “Pirc” as it’s written in the story, but then I realized it’s part of British (and other?) newspapers’ custom, as far as I can tell, of spelling out with upper and lower case letters acronyms that are pronounced as words. In UK papers it’s Aids and Nafta, but it’s still the BBC and the BFI. But that’s another story…