German Photoweigh – Master Bean – 14 October 1931

This has to be my favourite Photoweigh image and also one of my all-time-favourite photobooth photos. The reason I particularly love this image is that it reminds me of the wonderful comic character created by Rowan Atkinson, Mr Bean and his best friend Teddy.

Teddy is Mr. Bean’s teddy bear and perhaps Mr. Bean’s best friend. Mr. Bean often pretends Teddy is alive and he is often privy to Mr. Bean’s various schemes. I wonder what relationship the young man in the booth photo had with his bear, and what might have prompted him to take him to the booth for a photo? He looks a bit too old to be playing with a teddy bear, so perhaps it was taken to entertain a young child?

I had assumed that this Photoweigh photo was taken at a railway station in Frankfurt but on Googling the address Kaiserstr 67 (full address Kaiserstraße 67 60329 Frankfurt am Main – see picture of location as it looks today, below) found that it is part of a shopping street. Where the booth once stood is now the Yan Jing Chinese Restaurant.

More Photoweigh photo examples from the UK and Germany can be seen here, along with a detailed history of the booths written by David Simkin of Sussex PhotoHistory.

Another blogger of vintage photographs, Richard Overy, has found some wonderful examples of other Photoweigh photos from the UK from Barry Island. The links to those photos are below. I would also encourage you to explore more of Richard’s found photo blog for more interesting old photographs.

http://lostandfoundphotographs.wordpress.com/?s=barry+island