I bought this as a German drivers license but it is actually a monthly rail pass. As it was very cheap and collected solely for the photobooth Read More
1934 German Monthly Travel Pass
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Vintage Photobooth
Lori and Me – Part 1
On the back – “…over cute in all these pictures”
1969 Donna
On the back -” I love you. Do you love me? No or yes?”
This bubbly young woman is probably named Donna although that piece of information has been deduced from a single dedication on a photo, presumably given to the owner of the album from which all these and many other photobooth photos came. She is identified only as “me” in the rest of the pictures. Given the vagaries of this process of deduction, it may not be the name of the girl who most frequently appeared in the album, but I think it is likely, and thus she will be Donna to us.
Donna is photographed with many boyfriends and girlfriends, over a period of 4 years from 1969 to 1973, in a large series of photobooth photos which I will share with you in coming weeks.
For me, finding a series of photos of the same person over a period of years, is one of the highlights of collecting photobooth photos. It is particularly fascinating to see someone, in the formative years of their life, grow-up before our very eyes.
As with another long series that I posted last year, Becky and Friends, I will be adding highlights of this series to my Photobooth Time Machines category. In the category files, each post is shown in reverse order of date of publication, so to see the photos chronologically, you need to start at the bottom of the page and work upwards.
In this first instalment we have blondie Donna in the photobooth with friends Carlos and Bessie. All the photos were taken on the same day in 1969, somewhere in the USA.
On the back – “Me, Carlos, Bessie. 1969”
On the back – “1969 Me and Carlos (HA HA)”
On the back – “1969 (Yes!)”
Carlos and Donna
Bessie and Carlos
Bessie
Zoe’s German Half-Sister
The Housewife’s Journal – Novelty Framing
I find this dour faced lady fascinating in her determination to keep the same unsmiling expression in her three excursions to a photobooth. I wonder if she kept up this photographic po-face for her entire life?
Despite this lack of humour I do like her face. She reminds me of a favourite English actor, Zoe Wannamker. I struggled to find photos of an unsmiling Zoe. She seems to have a naturally sunny disposition. She is beaming happily in most of the Google images I could find but you may be able to see the resemblance in the two pictures below.
I tried to decipher the wording from the bottom of the novelty photo and use a translator to work out what this says. I am not familiar enough with the German language to make good guesses where the text is unclear, so was unsuccessful. Can anyone out there help me?
Lac Aux Castors – Montreal
This is an undated photobooth photo from Lac Aux Castors (Beaver Lake), Montreal. It is being published today, as Lisa from The Long Way Home Diaries commented last week that she liked a photo of me using the same gesture in one of the booth photos in Dick Jewell’s film, Katherine Griffiths 1973 – …..
I stumbled across this pic when sorting photos for this week’s posts and thought of her immediately. Lisa’s blog is a very personal and interesting one that often focusses on her creative Polaroid self-portrait photos. I encourage you to take a look.
Tattoo Man – Part Five
Polaroids of Tattoo Man’s Lady Love
From Ebay scan.
Below are two Polaroid photos showing Tattoo Man’s girlfriend sitting in a black and white photobooth. You can see the series of posts about him and his lady, here. These were sold by a different Ebay seller to the one from whom I bought my examples from the series. I was surprised and excited to find them. I was also convinced that there would be fierce competition for them in the last minutes of the auction, as there so often is with booth related ephemera. Luckily for me, I was the only bidder!
As you can see from the images, these were taken on the same day as the strip of photos at the top of the page. Given their love of photobooths and each other, this could only have been taken by Tattoo Man himself.
I love finding more information about the actual strips through these polaroids. Four poses for only two dollars, less than 15 years ago, sounds like a bargain to me. Also, it is clearer in the colour photos that the bow is one from a gift of some type, rather than a questionable fashion accessory. More information could be gleaned from the photos by someone, like Meags Fitzgerald, with more knowledge about photobooth models and their eras than I have.
One of two new additions to my photobooth related ephemera collection.
The second new addition.
Detail from the top polaroid showing a strip of black and white photos ready to be collected.
With her Tattoo Man. (From my collection.)
From Ebay scan.
Mr Sy’s Casino of Fun
I do love a photobooth related novelty and these are some of my favourites. I believe these faux American bills were given free to patrons of Mr Sy’s Casino of Fun in Las Vegas in the 1970s. Is it just a certain prejudice of mine, or are these people just so typical of the types one sees frequenting casinos to this day?
Mr Sy’s no longer exists but you can see what a very fine establishment it was from the postcard image at the bottom of the page! I wonder how much you had to spend on the pokies to get your “free” meal.
Backs of the notes showing the correct address on one and a typographical error for the address on the other.
Fabulous Floral Millinery
While probably not the most exciting of booth photos, I did enjoy the smirk on this woman’s face and her obvious pride in her hat, which appears to be covered in real roses. There is nothing about her coat or the rest of her clothes that suggest a woman of great style or substance but still she took pride in her appearance and quite possibly in her luxuriant rose garden.
This photobooth photo measures 40 x 50 mm and comes from the USA. I would guess this photo was taken in the mid 1950s.
Urban Cowdude
I just love this urban cowdude . He has a great smile, a confident demeanor and knows how to rock a hat!
This is a standard sized booth photo from the USA. It measures 42 x 50 mm. I guess that it would date from the 1970s.
Bonnie Baby Barb
Pretty little Barb is posing so beautifully in this photobooth image, that it is tempting to assume that she had already been in a booth on more than one previous occasion. Barbara’s full name is hand written in ink on the back of this photo but unfortunately the script is mostly illegible after her first name. At some point someone has added in pencil, Barb, aged 4 1/2.
This is a large format photobooth photo that has been hand coloured. It could possibly be an enlargement of a smaller booth photo, however as there were some machines that produced larger size images, I would say from the quality and crispness of the photo that this is indeed the original size.
Barb is wearing what I think is a lapel boutonniere, which I believe is the correct term for a flower that has a small tube water supply, that can be attached to clothing. I am not sure of this interpretation, so please take a look at the detail below and let me know what you think.
Detail
The photo measures 60 x 83 mm and came from the USA.
Photobooth Journal 