Archive

Vintage Photobooth

Movie of You

October 15, 2011
Movie-Of-U, Vintage Photobooth
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I was thrilled to be the only bidder on this rare photobooth lenticular photo.  It is made up of three exposures taken in succession on the same frame. The frame is placed under a lined sheet of acetate and when tilted appears to show movement.

In this example the lady’s eyes shift from the centre, then to the side and her mouth opens and closes. It is unfortunate that in the position needed to make a scan of the image, the sitter looks slightly cross-eyed.  What you can see above is actually parts of two of the three individual exposures.  For more information about these fabulous booth photos see Näkki Goranin’s book American Photobooth.

Leslie in the Dark

October 11, 2011
Vintage Photobooth
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Leslie

Leslie, Actual Size

Despite or due to (I’m still uncertain) the effects of time and the vagaries of the chemical processing of an automatic machine, I still love any booth photo. It intrigues me to find the odd and obscure products, like this one, that have survived so many years in such ill health.

This picture of Leslie was at the bottom of a box of larger photos in a second-hand market in a small town in the wilds of Arizona.  It looks to me, to be a photo from the 1930s. It cost me 25 cents.  You can only really see the image if it is tilted on a certain angle towards the light.  It is much clearer, even in the thumbnail scan, than in real life. I couldn’t even make out the name until I enlarged it.  Remnants of hand colouring can still be seen, so one presumes the poor chemical mix and almost opaque darkness was not evident until much later in its history.

Good looking and well dressed Leslie is a mysterious, romantic figure in this image. Who was he?  As Lisa from The Long Way Home blog (a good blog to check out, by the way) has said, in a comment on another post, “Wouldn’t it be wild if one of the people in the photos found the (image) on the ‘Net?”  In this case it would probably be too much to hope Leslie was still with us, but maybe a relative might accidentally come across this?  That really would be wild.

Photomatic Prices

October 9, 2011
Photobooth News, Vintage Photobooth
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Some months ago I was sent an email from Ebay for the day’s listings of photomatic photobooth items. These two darlings were listing as a buy it now for $9.99. I immediately clicked on the link to make a purchase but the items had been removed. They had been re-listed as two separate auctions. The first one sold for $70.99, the second for $92.00. Needless to say I was not the winning bidder on either lot. It made me very happy about the wee, wee prices I have paid for my many treasures. I bet the seller was thrilled!

Photobooth Photo Prices

October 9, 2011
Photobooth News, Vintage Photobooth
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Ebay Sale October 4, 2011

Since the time I started buying photobooth photos online, the prices have gone up and up. I am occasionally amazed at how high a price will go.  I can see why this photo is desirable, as it is quite old and very unusual, but $153.50? My feeling is that the competing bidders had money making projects in the works.  Will this photo eventually appear in an exhibition or book?

B. A. F. – Mon, Sept. 3 1944

October 2, 2011
Vintage Photobooth
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Barbara Ann 1944

Two more photomatic photobooth photos of Barbara Ann Fremier.  The photomatic format, as far as I have been able to discover, was never available outside the USA.  If any one finds that I have misread the hand written name on the back of the picture, please let me know your interpretation and I will consider it and make changes.

Barbara Ann, Lost?

October 2, 2011
Vintage Photobooth
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Barbara Ann Fremier 1940s

One of my reasons for collecting found and vintage photos is the wonderful sense of melancholy and nostalgia they invoke.  Clothes, hair-styles, the many different photograph formats, stains and scuffs, all add to the otherworldliness of each image. Is it that this little girl, now dead or an old woman, is no longer loved and remembered? Were the photos discarded accidentally, perhaps carted away unseen at the bottom of a box of miscellaneous goods at a garage sale?  Perhaps it was just the poor condition and quality of the photos that caused their separation from the original owners?  Whatever the reality, to me they make up a beautiful wee story-book of possibilities.

A Friend and Photobooth Dogs – My Femme Fatale – Part Seven

October 2, 2011
My Femme Fatale, Photobooths in Print, Vintage Photobooth
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One day, earlier this year I received the above book in the post from the USA. In addition to collecting photobooth photos and ephemera, I also collect books about photobooth photos, of which there are a surprising number.  This one Photobooth Dogs by Cameron Woo was published in 2010.  Over the previous year or two, I had noticed in my online shopping adventures, that vintage booth photos that included a dog, were going for higher and higher prices. I fully expected to see one or two pups that I recognised in this book.

Having made myself a cup of tea, I settled down for a long peruse. There were some stunning snaps of dogs alone or with their owners, big and small, cooperative and not so cooperative but the photos that really grabbed my attention were of an unexpectedly familiar face.  There was My Femme Fatale in all her glory with a companion I hadn’t seen before; a fuzz-faced poodle. It had been some time since I had looked at my French collection, so before mentioning my discovery to anyone, I sought them out to confirm that it was indeed my lady.

And here she is forever immortalised in print – living on in the book, in my blog, in my collection and my imagination.

Rogue Gallery

September 22, 2011
Vintage Photobooth
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Rogue Gallery

I bought this page from an old photo album on Ebay recently.  The seller’s description was none too flattering to the subject, which was what attracted me to look at the listing in the first instance.  From notes on the back of the page (which has two dilapidated box brownie snaps still attached), I know this lady’s name is Esther, she had a sister or friend called Ethel and that these photos were taken around 1936, possibly in West Michigan USA.

I love Esther.  She may not be a classical beauty but she has style, poise and a serene dignity that I find very appealing.  She obviously had a thing for photobooths, another reason to admire her!