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.
Opening tonight at Seattle’s Soil Art Gallery is a new exhibition called “knock-off.” Based on a 2003 trip to Italy, the installation by Nina Zingale and Gina Rymarcsuk uses photobooth photographs of figurines of religious and historic figures bought on the street. As the description reads
Zingale and Rymarcsuk borrowed the curbside Fotobooth’s ability to produce passport photos and then staged selected souvenirs into photo-ID poses (clustering them together in four repeated images).
This reference to “Fotobooth,” as though that’s a common name for something we all know, is somewhat misleading, and it seems clear from the small images available on the website that the images have been manipulated enough so as to be far from real photobooth photos anymore.
I have been trying to track one of these down for some time. The Pyramid Arts Center (now known as The Rochester Contemporary) in Rochester, NY had an exhibit entitled Photomaton: A Contemporary Survey of Photobooth Art in the late 80s. A copy of the catalog is being hawked on eBay. (hands off Mark Mothersbaugh) I am presently coordinating a snipe attempt. Update in 8 days, 19 hours.
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.
Last night at the AMC Fenway Theater, we hit the photobooth trifecta. First, as we walked up the stairs to get tickets, we saw a giant banner for the film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (?), featuring a photobooth strip sticking out of someone’s massive back pocket. Second, after we bought our tickets and were on the way to the theater, a poster for A Lot Like Love that Aimee spotted, using four photobooth pictures as the poster image. And finally, ten minutes into Hitch a couple goes on a date and — what else? — spends some time in a photobooth, which we see from inside and out in a ten-second sequence. It’s getting big, people. Posters pictured here, and screencaps from Hitch will follow when it arrives on dvd.
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.
