PHOTOBOOTH HISTORY

ANY PICTURES OF CHEMICAL BOOTHS WE CAN LEGALLY OBTAIN????????????

Although in the wedding business the photobooth is a relatively new phenomena, in the shopping malls and arcades and exhibitions of the world photobooths have been around almost as long as the cameras and vending machines from which they are derived. Photobooths have become a part of American culture as much as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

The concept of using optics to create images was first described by Chinese and Greek philosphers in the 4^th and 5^th centuries BC but cameras themselves did not become a practicality till the middle of the 19^th century. The first American patent for photography was issued to Alexander Wolcott in 1840 but it was George Eastman`s patent of the Kodak roll-film camera that first brought cameras into more widespread use in 1888.

Just as with photography, vending machines also have a history that dates back a long long time. The Greek mathematician Hero is credited with inventing a machine to vend holy water in Egyptian temples in 215 BC but once again it was in the late 19^th century that practical modern uses of vending machines came into use. The Thomas Adams gum company is credited with introducing the first vending machines in the United States in 1888. These machines sold Tutti-Frutti gum on the elevated subway platforms of New York City.

A cross between vending machines and cameras, it was not long before photobooths started appearing. Photobooths have a fascinating history and I am sure many people who operate photobooths today will  appreciate getting an insight into the many generations and re-incarnations of machines that eventually led to today`s photobooths.

Over in England, the first accounts of a photobooth type of business rests with Spiridione Grossi and his “Sticky Back” portraits. Grossi had applied for patents and was using some sort of apparatus  that took six small portraits and then placed them on a narrow strip of photo paper that had adhesive matter pasted on the back, much like a postage stamp. Technically this was not a photobooth as the picture was taken by a human, but it was the first account of a strip of photos much like we would later see in the automatic booths.

Mathew Stiffens had patented an automatic photography machine in France in 1889, as had a few others worldwide. The first huge success amongst photobooth operators in America however rests with Anatol Marco Josepho (1894-1980) who created a machine called the Photomaton which produced a strip of 8 photographic portraits in 8 minutes for 25 cents.

When he opened the machine up to the public in New York City at 1659 Broadway (between 51^st and 52^nd St) in the summer of 1925 it was an instant success. Similar to accounts of when Atlantic City first opened its doors to casino gambling much later, people were literally standing around the block to get their pictures taken. According to an article published in Time magazine on April 4, 1927, 280,000 people patronized the first Photomaton location in its first 6 months, during which time he kept it open 24 hours a day.

In 1927 Josepho sold his machines and his patent to a group of investors for the even sum of one million dollars plus guarantees of future royalties, and the rest is history. For the remaining 50 or so  years of his life Josepho was a very rich man and generous contributor to various causes.

It was not long before photobooths appeared on just about every corner. Many imitators also entered the picture, no pun intended-lol, and even World War II increased the demand for photobooths in that soldiers were using the photobooths to send small pictures of themselves to their loved ones and in return their loved ones sent a picture back. According to some estimates, by the early 1950's there were more than 30,000 photobooths in the United States.

The Photomaton itself however, had lost the majority of its market share by this time to Auto-Photo Company which had better distribution and was able to cut giant deals with Woolworth's and Kresge's, two of the retail giants of the time, for rental space. Known primarily as Model 9 and Model 11 machines, the 700 pound machines were cranked out by the thousands. They were a fixture at just about every arcade and drugstore, and at one point were even used by police departments and prisons for mug shots.

The artist most famous for utilizing photobooth pictures in their art is Andy Warhol. Over the course of his career Warhol made hundreds of photobooth portraits and self-portraits and often used these to produce silksceen paintings. All of this of course helped to establish photobooths as essential parts of American culture.

By the late 60's the introduction of Polaroid photography caused the photobooth business to shrink for the first time in almost 40 years. The Auto-Photo company was bought by Photo-Me, a company based out of Britain and although photobooths never did disappear they were in trouble. Of course the manufacturers of mall and arcade photobooths did not give up even in a declining market. First color booths, then sticker booths and finally digital booths replaced the old standards in different phases.

Some estimates put the current number of mall and arcade photobooths in the United States at around 10,000 with many times that number existing around the world. Almost all current photobooths are digital. Only a handful of historic chemical ones remain and they are housed mostly in private collections and museums. Of course, as we all know, portable mobile photobooths started appearing shortly after the start of the millennium.

Digital vs. Chemical

Much like there are people who love lp records and hate the switch to cd and then mp3, there are photobooth lovers out there that love collecting the old photochemical booths, and prefer them to the current blend of what they call “digital” booths. I do not necessarily agree with their opinion but there are those that claim that the old chemical prints were more sharp and more durable.

I do agree that there is a certain old nostalgia to the old booths, and they have a certain style as do many of the classic cars. For those of you that enjoy classic movies as well, photobooths played a part in many many movies. Photobooths have definitely been part of the popular culture for almost the last hundred years. If one searches the movie databases, one can find photobooth references in movies dating back to 1928, but the first movie I saw myself with a photobooth was the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night in 1964.

Many movies in the 1980's and 1990's had scenes with photobooths including The Fugitive (1993), Karate Kid (1984), The Terminator (1984), Beaches (1988), The Mambo Kings (1992) and The Net (1995) among many others, but the best use of a photobooth was in the movie Superman III. In the movie Clark Kent substitutes the traditional phone booth with a photobooth as his locale for changing into Superman. An amazing listing of movies with photobooths appears in the website www.photobooth.net .

Fast Forward To Today

With the advent of digital photography and portable computers it was finally possible for photobooths to be much more easily moved to temporary placements at events such as weddings and corporate parties. People have always loved photobooths but for the first time people did not have to seek out photobooths. Rather, the photobooths came to them and their parties.

It is hard to explain the psychology behind the fact that photobooths bring out the wild and crazy side of just about everyone of any age, but it is this reality that has transformed photobooths in the last few years into the new and alternative form of entertainment. By this time the general idea of the photobooth was pretty much in the public domain for a long time and only specific innovations could be patented, so this brought out manufacturer wannabe's by the hundreds. As always, only a handful got to the top of the pile.

Unlike in the past when photographers were the main forces behind the growing photobooth markets of the time, in the twenty-first century a funny thing happened. Many photographers at first shunned the idea of using a photobooth at a wedding or a special event as they incorrectly believed that it was automation designed to replace them.

Many DJ companies picked up the slack and started offering photobooths as part of their services and proved that DJs, photographers and photobooths could all co-exist at a wedding, each playing their own important and vital roles. For many DJ firms, especially the larger ones, it was photobooths that helped them survive the recession of 2009 relatively unscathed, or perhaps even in a much stronger position. After all, in hard times the strong have traditionally become stronger and the weak have well, disappeared.

The other thing DJs can be credited for is promoting the new photobooths not just as the new method of taking pictures but rather the new form of entertainment. Props for the first time became an essential part of the whole photobooth experience. Photobooth attendants were for the first time seen not as unskilled labor but as facilitators of fun. At least this is what the companies that were doing it right were promoting.