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I bought this rare type of photobooth photo from an online seller in the USA. I have others in my collection, three of which you can see here. When it arrived it was in a parlous state of repair, being in two pieces and covered with brown paper tape to stop the photo inside from moving. None of the item’s problems were listed in the  advertisement.

After numerous emails where the seller accused me of creating the damage, I finally got an agreement to a refund but it cost me more to return it (it had to be sent registered post), than the item originally cost, leaving me out of pocket by $18. Having had to scan the photo to prove that the item had arrived in poor condition, I decided the best way to ameliorate my bad feelings about the whole affair, is to do a blog post about how the mechanics of this type of photobooth item works. I hope you find it interesting.

Damage and brown paper tape on back.

With back and therefore photo removed. You can see the marks on the “lens” that gives the illusion of movement when the item is squeezed.

The inside of the item, showing the lens and photo. The image has three distinct images overlapping and printed together. The lens separates each image and the illusion of movement is created by squeezing the sides of the frame.