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About A Boy

About A Boy – 1965

August 4, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
16 Comments

photoboothAboutABoy06

This is the sixth and final part of a series of photobooth strips of the same American boy. I think he would have been 14 or 15 years old when he sat for these photos.

In this group of snaps, our handsome subject is looking like he is close to getting his man face but is still not quite grown up. Sadly, he has lost his unrestrained joy at making faces for the camera. Maybe he was just concentrating so hard on holding up his friend, that he forgot to smile. Either way, it is the tiny pup that has now become the star of the show. He is a cute little canine, who appears to be a lot more cooperative in the portrait taking stakes than my own pooch, Snowy.

Well before coming to the end of this series, some of my loyal commenters wondered what he might look like now, or where he might be? Unfortunately without a name to add to these photo treasures, it is highly likely we will never know.

To see the other photos of this young man, please click here. And while you are clicking, you could try hitting here to see another long series of photos of a girl called Becky or here to see another girl growing up in a photobooth, Donna.

About A Boy – 1964

August 3, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
7 Comments

photoboothAboutABoy05

This is part five of a series of photobooth strips of the same American boy. For each year that there are photobooth pictures in this group, I have estimated his age. In these photos I think he would be 13 or 14 years old.

With an unusual hat and ill-fitting jacket, the young extrovert of earlier photos is still in evidence. He is still showing some joy at having his photo taken, but not nearly as much as in earlier photos. Rather than a lumberjack coat, this time he is wearing a lumberjack shirt.

Do you think his mother bought the jacket two sizes larger than needed, as mums do in the middle of these growth spurt years? Or could the jacket be his dad’s or a hand-me-down from an older brother? I imagine this boy to be an only child due to his appearing in so many photos without a sibling, so do not particularly like the hand-me-down hypothesis. And what type of hat is that? I have no clue!

To see the other photos of this young man, please click here. And while we are at it, you could click here to see another long series of photos of a girl called Becky or here to see another girl growing up in a photobooth, Donna.

About A Boy – 28 May 1963

July 26, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
18 Comments

photoboothAboutABoy04

This is part four of a series of photobooth strips of the same American boy. I estimate that he would be 12 or 13 in these photos.

There has been a gap of three and a half years from the time the last photos in this group were taken. Our young man is looking more grown up and acting that way. Gone are the crazy faces and comical poses. The photos suggest a growing maturity but happily his inner comedian is still there. You will see what I mean in the next post, as we continue to follow his progression from boyhood to young adulthood.

To see the other photos of this young man, please click here.

About A Boy – 21 December 1959

July 25, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
4 Comments

 

photoboothAboutABoyDec21:1959No1photoboothAboutABoyDec21:1959

This is part three of a series of photobooth strips of the same little American boy. My estimate is that he would be 9 or ten in these photos.

I wonder if the first strip was deemed unsuccessful, resulting in the second one being taken with a different background and a properly adjusted seat? I like the way the second strip shows a progression from not quite ready, to small smile, to bigger smile, to wide eyed grin. We can still see the cheekiness and spirit on show in previous strips, albeit slightly toned down.

Having been taken on the same day, he is wearing the same lumberjack coat in both strips. Being slow to pick up on fashion trends in those days, this style of boy’s clothing didn’t make it to Australia until the 1970s. It is a trend that is currently being revived in some retail outlets today. Blah! But I digress! It is interesting to me that with a less reflective background, his hair looks much darker and by adjusting the seat he looks older than in the first strip.

To see the other photos in the series, please click here.

About A Boy – November 1958

July 21, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
30 Comments

photoboothAboutABoy01

This is the second in a series of photos of a young American having fun in a photobooth. I think he may have grown up to be an actor, given his love of performing for a camera and the range of faces he came up with in these two strips!

It is easy to imagine his mum or dad standing outside the booth encouraging him to play the fool. It is just as easy to think that they may have chastised him for his behaviour. Having said that, there is always the possibility that he passed the booth on his way to or from school and used his pocket money to make the photos. However, this is the least likely scenario as the photos have all been dated in an adult hand, not to mention that they are in much too fine a condition to have been part of a childhood collection.

This little boy appears in these strips in an outfit very similar to one that my brother wore around the same era. It is very much of its time and thus looks very daggy and dated. I am sorry eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith. Bowties are not cool.

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Sorry Doctor, they aren’t!

About A Boy – June 1958

July 20, 2016
About A Boy, Vintage Photobooth
21 Comments

photoboothAboutABoy02

This is the first of a set of eight photobooth strips from the United States. Each of the strips is dated on the front and back. Unfortunately there are no other details recorded.

I imagine this cheeky and handsome young man to be 8 or 9 in this strip, making him around 14 or 15 in the last of them. As you will see as this series progresses, he is not afraid to play the fool in front of the camera, more so in some of the strips than others.

As I have said before, I love a sequence of photobooth photos that show the changes in a person from one year to the next. Booth photos are particularly well suited to watching someone as they grow up or grow older, due to their main focus being on head and shoulders. It is part of the reason I love them so much.

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