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Vintage Photobooth

The Actors’ Agency Part 9

February 24, 2017
The Actors' Agency, Vintage Photobooth
47 Comments
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Enlargements of these photobooth photos are at the bottom of this post.

Here is another Parisian actor’s file card from, the 50s or 60s, for your perusal. I have not been able to find Gisele in any online files, so maybe she had no success, despite her film star style and beauty? She seems to know how to pose masterfully for the camera. Perhaps she was looking for modelling work and was already experienced in the field? The gentleman from whom I bought this series of cards was unsure of the exact extent of the agency’s remit, so it is possible she had a thriving, though anonymous career as a model?

When I purchased this card, I was unable to work out what was going on around Gisele’s ear in the second image. Now, being able to enlarge it, I can see that what might have been a small spray of tiny flowers, is actually an ingeniously designed earring. It has bead-tipped filaments that radiate, almost invisibly, out of the central cluster clipped to her lobe. A lovely effect on her dark hair, and one I have never seen before.

In the same photo, there is something of Jackie Kennedy in Gisele’s hair, makeup and clothes. Given Kennedy’s French connections, one may wonder if there is more in Jackie’s style that was fashionably Parisian, than there is in Gisele being fashionably American. Either way, she has the exemplary poise and grace of a fashion icon.

There are some other great photos in this series to come, and some previous posts you might enjoy browsing through.

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Goofy Gomer

February 23, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
28 Comments
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USA 1950s

The character on the right of the above photobooth photo reminds me of Jim Nabors, the actor who played Gomer Pyle in a very popular 1960s, US, situation comedy, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. I have no idea whether these two lads are, like Gomer, Marines but the palm tree dotted coastal scene in the backdrop lends a naval/marine feel to the photo that fits my premise.

So what is going on in this photo? It looks to me as though Gomer’s pal on the left, has seen some money fall out of the coin return slot and mistaken that for a malfunction. Gomer has reacted to his pal’s grimace by making a funny face of his own. Therefore they have both missed the fact that the photobooth was already beginnng its work. I hope these boys were not off on a dangerous mission. If they were, they at least had an amusing souvenir of their time at home.

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Above and below – Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle

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Grumpy With Doll

February 20, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
28 Comments
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Germany 1930s

Here we have a seriously unamused child with, what looks to be, a brand new dolly. Her furrowed brow reminds me of an expression a disapproving, elder relative might direct towards a naughty child. Yet there is a faint trace of a smile in her pursed lips. It is as though the experience of being photographed is eliciting an automatic gesture, that she is determined not to make. The doll is looking sanguinely towards her owner’s face, hoping she is not the object of the girl’s displeasure. The way the stripes of the girl’s top and the plaid of the doll’s dress tonally harmonise, visually emphasises an emotional joining of the two actor’s in this photographic vignette.

As with any other photobooth photos, there would have been multiple photos in this strip. The others might have shown a perky, carefree, smiling child. However, this photobooth photo is the one that survived out in a world of deceased estate auctions, flea markets and online collectibles websites. A rough and tumble world, where photos as small as this one often get jammed in the bottom of a box, bent and mangled by browsers or lumped into and forgotten in a large auction lot with more desirable photos. All this leads me to think that this child’s grumpy-face was not unique to this photo at all. She had her doll. She had her day out. She was tired and wanted to go home and she DIDN’T want her photo taken in a stupid photobooth.

Strata of the Self

February 15, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
45 Comments

Earlier this month I submitted a diptych of two complete photobooth strips to the curated, self portrait blog strata of the self. I was thrilled that they were accepted. They were published in a post this afternoon, which I have reblogged, below. Please visit and explore the many and varied self portraits in multiple mediums that you will find there.

A good place to start your perusal is the About page which explains the blog’s philosophy and introduces you to Ashley Lily Scarlett the artist-curator. Ashley also has a photography, writing and animation blog, Syncopated Eyeball, which is fascinating to dip into, as well as a photo-conversation site called Between Scarlett and Guest.

© Katherine Griffiths 2017 blog: Photobooth Journal

via Katherine Griffiths: Flinders Street 30 January 2017 — strata of the self

Music, Hearts and Bluebirds

February 14, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
39 Comments

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These are the first Saint Valentine’s Day photobooth strips I have taken for this blog. ❤🌹Happy day to lovers, all! 🌹❤

These strips were taken on 30 January, 2017, at the Flinders Street photobooth. I had a hospital appointment and received good news from the surgeon. I had a photobooth appointment and received good news from a sign. I had a shopping appointment and received good news from the prices. Definitely a ❤❤❤ day.

PS The background decoration is made from pages from a 1970s romance comic called All Love, the remains of which I am reading in the centre strip.

Weird. Strange.

February 13, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
16 Comments

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 Funny. French. Fab!  1960s.

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Tongues Of Fun

February 9, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
44 Comments

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Sometimes I am lucky enough to find a large, mixed lot of photobooth photos at a reasonable price. Along with dirty, scratched, bent, taped, torn or peeling photos, there will be those in pristine condition. However sometimes the condition just doesn’t matter.

All of these photos have suffered from poor handling and all being relatively new, are not sort after by the “serious” collector. I don’t give a rat’s fart about that! I love the joy and craziness exhibited in each and every one of them. I hope you do, too.

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All the photos come from a country that is great, always has been great and doesn’t need to be “made great again”, the United States of America.

About The Flinders Street Photobooth Poem

February 7, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
6 Comments

The photobooth poem in the previous post, I published without any details about the writer. I wanted to focus on the poem, rather than its origins. My reason for that decision, is that I don’t actually have any details about the author and it is rather a long story to tell you why.

It is all very mysterious. The poem was written as a comment on this post, which revealed that the Flinders Street photobooth had been saved from permanent removal. The comment was made by the blogger atrmws who, I discovered upon searching for more details, has a private blog site. I was unable to determine the most basic information, such as where they are from or whether they are male or female.

As a reply to the poem comment, I asked for permission to use it as a post. After 24 hours or so, with no response, I decided that the author may not regularly be on WordPress and therefore may not have seen my request. I reasoned that publishing it as a separate post would not be a problem, as it had already been published as a comment. Luckily, it was not a faux pas on my part, as atrmws, liked the poem post. Sadly they did not leave a comment.

For the poem, atrmws had done some research. In order to construct it, they referenced comments by Alan Adler, the owner of the booth, from a newspaper article from January 2011. I suspect they have also spent time using an old photobooth as the line “A whirring, thinking, clinking something” exactly captures the sounds one hears when the booth is working to develop photos.

So thank you to atrmws! I was totally thrilled to find that you had written a photobooth poem just for me.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Flinders Street Photobooth poem and hearing at least a fragment of the story behind it. Douglas from From 1 Blogger 2 Another liked it enough to reblog it, for which I thank him. I also thank him for all the other times he has reblogged my posts. Cheers Douglas!

Please check out Douglas’s blog blog to discover some wonderful gems from the blogosphere or check out his artist’s blog Moorezart for a dose of inspiration. You may also enjoy the Art of Quotation for some daily creative thinking through quotes.

Below is another strip of “four square, black-and-white mementos” from the old Flinders Street booth.

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Flinders Street, 12 May 1999

TFSP BY atrmws

February 2, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
26 Comments

The Flinders Street Photobooth

by atrmws

In the end, it was a question of coins

More accurately the advent of the dollar

That big, shiny circle of happiness

Monumental in the palm, the simplest exchange

For four square, black-and-white mementos

A whirring, thinking, clinking something

Alan Adler was the photo-man, his trolleyful

Of cans, the charmer and his chemicals

Had coloured magic on his hands

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From the Flinders Street photobooth when it printed four shots to a strip. 29 March, 1996


This photo strip was previously published in the post Filling In Time, on the 11th of January 2012.

I will write more about the poem and where it came from in a later post.

Yes, We Are Open

January 31, 2017
Vintage Photobooth
42 Comments

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The Flinders Street photobooth where I have taken hundreds of photos over the last thirty years, the photobooth that I look forward to using everytime I need to be in Melbourne, the photobooth where I have had so much fun, the photobooth that looked like I’d never see again, (yeah, that booth) has been saved!

YAY!!!

I took 23 strips to celebrate. I look forward to sharing some of them with you soon.

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