Archive

Vintage Photobooth

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.

Serbians in Paris – 1966

July 18, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
22 Comments

photoboothSerbiansParis

I purchased this half strip of photobooth photos from an online seller based in Serbia. On the back is written Paris 17.12.66.

I was particularly attracted to this strip due to the broad, mirthful smiles on all three sitters but particularly by the  lady on the left’s expressions. I love the way her glance moves towards her friend in the second shot. There is something so cheeky and appealing in her two poses. I love her!

Once again, I also find some sadness in the fact that these photos have been lost to their owner. Death, broken relationships or accidental loss could account for it. The vicissitudes of life sadly toss us about and of course, it is no different for photos.

Puppy Love

July 14, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
20 Comments

photoboothChildPuppyDon'tOwn

A special little photo that, sadly, somebody else owns. Enjoy!

Clean Fun

July 7, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
10 Comments

photoboothCleanFun 2

This type of novelty cutout was often seen in carnival photos throughout much of the twentieth century. More often than not, they were used in an onsite studio setting and printed as snapshots or photo postcards. In photobooth images they are very rare and highly sought after by collectors. This is the only one I have managed to procure in 12 years of shopping for collectables online. It comes from the USA.

A booth, located at a fair or carnival, would have offered a selection of boards from which to choose. The customer would have needed to hold the cutout, carefully positioning it to keep both the caption and themselves in frame. This choice seems slightly dodgy to me, given that the couple appear to be father and daughter, but maybe the woman is older than she appears to be?

The photo was once attached to an album page. There was no known provenance as far as the seller was concerned.

Moose-Tache

July 6, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
8 Comments

photoboothCarteD'identite

I purchased this French identity card solely due to the wonderful moustache of the sitter. It almost wouldn’t have mattered if it had not even been a photobooth photo, such is my love of his facial, follicular folly.*

So, let me introduce to you Cesar Joseph Henri. I am unable to work out his surname, unfortunately. He was described as being 1.70 metres tall, having an oval face, strong nose and brown eyes. Strangely, his hair is described as grissonant (greying), which seems very polite given that he looks to be well and truly into silver fox territory, and especially strange when they then go on, quite impolitely, to say he has a bad complexion.

Cesar was born in Marseille on 25 September 1873, making him 66 years old when he applied for the card. Marked with the seal of the 4th Arrondisement of Marseille on the 18 December, 1939, one assumes that this city was his lifelong residence.

When it comes to his facial-hair, fashion choices, Cesar looks to have his feet firmly planted in the century in which he was born. His taste for a style of the Victorian era must have been very passé by 1939.

As the title of this post suggests, the size of his moustache makes me think of the elaborate antlers of a mature bull moose. It is known that the size of antlers signals to the female moose, the male’s social standing and breeding abilities. Perhaps, amusingly, this is what our sitter was wanting to project to the female populace of Marseille.

photoboothCarteD'identiteDetail

* I just had to throw in the word folly, as fellow blogger Melinda Harvey and I have decided it is a marvellous word that deserves greater quotidian usage. I felt I needed to throw in another of my favourite words, quotidian, just ’cause I could. Please take a look at Melinda’s blog, One Day/One Image, if you love contemporary black and white photography. You will not be disappointed.

 

Love Behind The Curtain

July 2, 2016
Photoweigh Photobooth, Vintage Photobooth
30 Comments
photoboothLovelyMenPhotoWeigh01

Our young man on the right, in 1934. Love those almost identical suits and those hairstyles!

Photoweigh photobooth photos are rare. Between the 1930s and 1970s when the last of these booths disappeared, there appears to have been only a handful scattered across the UK, Germany and France. Although a business called the American Automatic Photoweigh Company Inc. was registered in America, there does not appear to have been any booths operating there.

These English photos from 1934 and 1939, above and below, are even rarer than typical, holiday-souvenir Photoweigh images, as they show the same young man in two close poses with his male friends. There are many photos for sale online which purport to show gay or lesbian lovers. In most instances it is decidedly unclear as to whether the subjects are just pals or in closer relationships. However in this instance, I think it is safe to say the men pictured here are more than just friends.

photoboothLovelyMenPhotoWeigh02

Again in 1934 but now on the left, in a joyful embrace.

At a time when homosexuality was still criminalised, taking affectionate same sex snapshots to a commercial printer, posed risks to what would have needed to be clandestine relationships. Without access to your own darkroom, photobooths were the only way to commemorate a gay relationship in private and with confidence. Photobooths created images without a tell tale negative or in the case of some Photoweigh machines where a paper negative was supplied with the finished positive, leaving no record in the machine.

Despite the happy and loving nature of these photos, there is a heartbreaking poignancy to them, given the prejudice and suffering endured by the same sex community at the time. The young man who is pictured in all three photos, looks a jolly type. I hope that translated into a fulfilling and happy life despite the obstacles he would have had to face.

You can read more about the history of this type of photobooth here, and see more Photoweigh images here.

photoboothLovelyMenPhotoWeigh03

Five years later, a solo portrait.

Ted Giffin’s Portrait of Katherine

June 24, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
30 Comments

portrait-of-katherine

Ted Giffin – Mixed media on paper, 5″ x 5″, June 2016

The day before yesterday one of my blogger friends, Ted Giffin, asked me if he could use my Gravatar profile pic to make a portrait. Knowing and loving his work, “Hell, yes!”, was my immediate reply. I didn’t think anything more about it, as I did not expect Ted to be a super speed drawer/painter, or necessarily have the time to attend to the job in the immediate future. I was THRILLED when I opened my email app yesterday to find attached, the above scan.

I love Ted’s blog, especially when he publishes posts about his visual art. His drawings have a spontaneity I love. His paintings use heavy impasto layers to build up frequently colourful impressions of a friend or model. His view of the world when doing cityscapes, flowers or birds is often a riot of heavy layers of colour and texture.

Ted sent me an email with the scan and wrote –

I really do not know what color your eyes are,
but I thought bright green and blue and a bit of purple
would be nice.

 

Funnily enough, I actually do have green-blue eyes, albeit not as vividly portrayed above.

The portrait is based on the photobooth photo (below) which was taken in April 1997. It first appeared on this blog here.

Ted is an artist, musician and poet. His website is here. I urge you to take a look at more of his work.

photoboothGravatarApril1997

Twins – 22 June, 1962

June 22, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
22 Comments

photoboothTwinsMF
As I still use a photobooth that produces images very like this one, it is hard to believe this photo was taken 54 years ago, today.

I recently bought this from an American seller. The listing stated that the pair above, were male and female twins, on the basis of an M and F marked on the back of the photo, along with the date. I don’t believe it. I think they are both boys. The letters could just as easily be referring to their names, Mackenzie and Felix for example.

I would like to know what you think. Are these twin boys, twin girls or a boy and a girl? Please leave a comment, below.

 

A Gentleman Of Distinction

June 17, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
15 Comments

photoboothGermanGentleman02

photoboothGermanGentleman01

I do not own these two striking portraits, unfortunately. These are scans from the website where they were sold. I was taken by the gentleman’s confident and regal bearing, so put in a bid, but lost out at the last moment.

These poses are more suited to a formal studio-composed photographic portrait, than to a five minute snap in a humble photobooth. The images date from the 1930s and were taken in Germany.

My gent is wearing a very well tailored and no doubt fashionable overcoat. His felt hat looks luxurious and expensive. I can just see him flicking the brim upwards, after having positioned the hat at just the right angle, prior to heading out into a bitter winter wind. Around his neck he is wearing what my Grandfather called an opera scarf, probably made of white silk. I imagine his breast-pocket handkerchief also to be white and made of the finest linen. His scarf is covering most of his tie but one can just discern a flattened dot pattern woven into the, doubtless silk, fabric.

He looks to be a well off and important man, who knows that image and demeanour are everything. I wonder why he chose to take these photos? Was his hat or coat new? Did he want to try a photobooth for the first time? It would have been an innovation and novelty in the 30s. No doubt he was very pleased with the results as the photos have been kept in good condition for over 80 years. I am envious of the new owner and hope that they look after the photos so that they last for at least another 80 years.

Faces Pulling Faces

June 1, 2016
Vintage Photobooth
16 Comments

photoboothBoys01

photoboothBoys02

photoboothboys03

There is no information on the back of these photos to indicate a place, names or dates, despite the previous owner having gone to the trouble of numbering each photo. Why they should have been numbered 1, 2, 3 is unclear, as judging by the clothes of the boy who appears in all three shots, the images were taken on two different days.

I guess the boy who is mugging for the camera in the first photo is a brother of the guy in uniform. It is a shame he didn’t join in the face pulling. Maybe he liked his perfect look in his military duds too much to play the fool whilst wearing them. Or maybe he was too nervous to think of it, as he may well have been off on his first posting overseas.

I bought these photos as much for the background as for the fabulous, goofy faces. It was the first time I had seen a battleship in a backdrop. I have since found a few more, which I will share with you in coming posts.

I am guessing these images were made during WW2 as the military theme would have suited the many last souvenir photos that would have been made at that time.