August 1996, St Kilda, Melbourne
After a one month business course, finding a distributor, writing a 50 page business plan and
weeks and weeks of designing, I finally sent my first lot of 16 designs to a printer. So what did I do on the day my greeting cards arrived? I headed to a photobooth of course!
13 July 1996, St Kilda, Melbourne
Yet another group of pictures from my favourite photobooth at Luna Park, which continues my chronological photobooth series.
This is me and a friend with her child. She initially gave me permission to use the image on the blog but then changed her mind, so I pixilated the faces to keep her happy.
I quite like the mystery of this image. It has the feel of a missing person or wanted poster. It is slightly melancholic and sad.
29 March 1996, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
Filling in time before meeting my friend Petrina in town for some shopping. It was a warm day, I was eating a cup of frozen yogurt and enjoying a spot of photoboothing.
February 1996, Melbourne, Australia
This is my beautiful and steadfast friend Petrina and me in a photobooth at – guess where??… Luna Park, St Kilda. Trini and I met whilst working at an Australian franchise of the American firm, The Nature Company. Shop chicks together, we tried our best to get as much nattering time as possible, in between serving, whilst dusting and whilst presenting the stock for sale. Everybody loves Petrina, especially Mark to whom she is married and with whom she has two kids.
Trini and I slipped into this photobooth one Saturday in 1996. It was the 24th of February, according to notes on the back of the strip. We had known each other about 12 months and were already very firm friends, as we are today. Her daughter Grace is my god-child, I am extremely proud to say.
I would also like to add that I am NOT wearing braces!! The striped band over my shoulder is a souvenir of Guatemala, a beautiful hand crocheted bag.
January 1996, Luna Park, Melbourne
After an early morning swim at St Kilda beach.
This strip is part of the series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here.
29 October 1995, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
Taken after a performance of The Duchess of Malfi by Cheek By Jowl Theatre Company.
This strip is part of the series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here.
May 1995, Hamilton, New Zealand
On any visit to NZ, visiting relations is my first priority. I stayed first with my Aunty Cecilie and Uncle Gregor in Hamilton where their magnificent hospitality was laid on, as usual. After a few days with them, for the first time in my life, I hired a car to go out and about on my own. Unable to sleep due to nerves and excitement, I took off at 2.30 am one morning to drive to Wanganui to see my mate, Moana. I only managed to complete the journey without an accident, due to three catnaps at various points along the way. Moana and I then did a week-long driving tour of the South Island. We then drove back up north, to Rotorua to meet up with Cecilie and Gregor, where we took advantage of the many thermal bath opportunities on offer. This visit was the last time I saw my Uncle Gregor, who had inspired my first international travel adventure. He died in May the following year.
I have been to New Zealand many times but this was the first, and so far only time, I ever found a photobooth machine there. Not my favourite type of booth, having only a single shot option, with a polaroid product, but to my mind better than nothing.This was taken in a store on Hamilton’s main shopping street on the 18th of May, 1995.
22 April 1995, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
Apart from the fact this photo was taken at Melbourne’s historical railway station, Flinders Street, on the above date at 5.15 pm there is no information written on the back. The occasion on which the photo was taken will thus remain a mystery.
This strip is part of the series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here.
March 1995, Melbourne
At this time I was co-habitating with my man in a fabulous flat in Balaclava, still working part-time at a city gift shop and still making and selling hand-made cards part-time. I was thirty-three years old, happy and excited about life.
Glasses, although by now a necessity for the close work I was doing with my greeting card designs, were not a fashion priority. I got the cheapest frames available. Even in 1995, I cannot imagine these glasses were stylish. My only excuse for putting up with these ghastly lenses, apart from wanting to keep my money for more important things, like travelling, is that I never wore them outside of the house.
On the day I collected them from Chadstone Optical, I, of course, headed to a photobooth to record the momentous occasion of the beginning of my slow optical decline.
Luna Park 21/01/1995
On Melbourne Cup Day 1994, I met my future husband, (unfortunately, now ex-husband), at a Cup Day barbeque hosted by a school friend. We both bet on the same horse that won the cup that year. From the first, we got on really well. We rented a flat in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava, coincidentally, not far from my favourite photobooths at Luna Park.
I was continuing to develop my hand-made greeting card ranges and thinking about how to move to the next step – publishing my designs.
Photobooth Journal 