I read an article that stated there were only 200 old school photo booths left in the world. The others have gone digital. I don’t remember encountering any in my youth. Where would they be set up - shopping malls, I guess? What about before the malls?
I think some were at amusement park arcades.
Arcades and shopping malls, yes; but perhaps more importantly, they were in train and bus stations. He’s shipping out on the next train or bus, and she wants one more photo of the two of them, and they could get four photos for a quarter, right then and there.
As a teenager we would drive over the hill to the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk where they had all manner of games and amusements. We would get 8 black and white photos taken crammed into a photo booth making faces for only $1. I wish I still had those today.
You could rent them, say, for your wedding reception.
I have a couple old photos from a booth in a movie theater. Which I guess makes sense: Somewhere people are likely to go on a date and want to get a photo of their happy couplehood.
Malls, boardwalks, amusement parks, arcades, theaters, various other shopping centers and public places where people walk and shop.
…for the sake of clarity: the OP is describing “analog photobooths”, that have their own “mechanical darkrooms” and develop black-and-white film the old school way.
As a photographer, we built our own digital photobooth out of an old wooden blue crate, an old Canon rebel, a lightstand and strobe, and a subdye printer. Definitely doesn’t have the charm of the old-school booths.
Yeah, that was where they were here, too.
Another vote for train stations; that’s where I remember them (in addition to shopping malls). The booths were inconspicuous - you’d often walk past them without noticing them. Unless, of course, you needed one, in which case you’d look out for them.
I suppose the booths were a great way to optimise retail revenue of train stations and shopping malls. You could put them into any little corner space that would be too small for a shop to make a little extra money.
I remember them in corner drugstore-type places.
mmm
I thought this was a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of photo booths. And the timeline I found here seems to back that up:
They were also in a type of store that really doesn’t exist anymore - “five and dime” stores like Woolworths.
I don’t know if they were in most Kmarts but ours had one. Front of the store after the checkouts before you exited.
Used to have one in the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Photobooth pic of the Mrs. and I in 1973, compared to 2023. That early one was taken in Lakehurst Mall, Waukegan Illinois, when we were barely/almost 16 years old. Yes, she’s wearing the same scarf in both pics.
Sorry, couldn’t resist sharing. Merry Xmas all!
You used them for fun pics? I would have thought that was a secondary use: when I was a kid the pictures were used for all types of ID like photos: from actual ID cards and passports (the booths stated in big letters that the pictures were in conformity with the regulations for official pictures) to membership cards in all sort of clubs, libraries, public transport monthly cards… The enterprise that set them up in Spain came from France and gave the name to the whole thing: Photomaton in French, Fotomatón in Spanish, but reading the wikiarticle (only in French, no translations!) I see the original inventor was a New Yorker, Anatol Marco Josepho (that one is in English). And he already called it Photomaton and was paid one million dollar for the invention! It was bought by Henry Morgenthau Sr.
I later worked in that same mall (Waldenbooks), and observed that the photobooth users seemed to mostly be teens goofing around, along with families. The resultant pics sure weren’t passport-sized. And the other ID cards (drivers license, school ID) that had photos in that era had those pics taken by DMV and school services. I’m sure lots of the photobooth pics were used to generate fake ID cards though.
Yeah, that’s sounds right to me, and I could swear our local grocery (Jewel) had one, near where they’d have little kids “rides” like a mechanical horse or race car and those kiddie movie booths that would play old timey Merrie Melodies or Woody Woodpecker cartoons for a quarter or two.
Yeah, maybe I could have trimmed down a “recreational” photo booth picture but the DMV took their own photos and, when I needed a passport in the 90s, it was a trip to the photo counter at Walgreens to have a special picture taken to passport requirements. High school and college IDs took their own photos as well.