Me In A Photobooth Book

July 9, 2014
Photobooth Art, Photobooths in Print
12 Comments

10345806_10203637137070175_2336535282086777154_n

This is a page from Meags Fitzgerald’s book Photobooth A Biography, which I recently reviewed in this post. As you can see, I made it into the book as did some other enthusiasts and artists involved with photobooth photo making, collecting and preservation.

Below is the original photo from which Meags did her drawing of me. It was taken in Chapel Street in Prahran, Melbourne on 11 August 2011.

In the coming weeks I will showcase some of the work of the other people pictured here. I am looking forward to sharing their works with you.

photoboothMeags01

Zoe’s German Half-Sister

July 8, 2014
Vintage Photobooth
24 Comments

photoboothGermanZoeWannamaker01
photoboothGermanZoeWannamaker02

photoboothGermanZoeWannamaker03

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.

images Unknown

photoboothGermanDetail
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

July 7, 2014
Vintage Photobooth
7 Comments

photoboothLacAuxCastorsCanada

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.

 

Oxford Circus Tube Station – 9 December 1999

July 4, 2014
Photobooth 45 Year Project (Archive)
6 Comments

photobooth09:12:1999

9 December 1999, Oxford Circus Tube Station, London

This poorly developed colour strip of photos shows me wind swept and cold on a typical London December day. I am holding a Tube travel pass I still had from 1988. (See below). I was visiting friends in London on my way to seeing my sister in Dublin to celebrate my eight month old nephew’s first Christmas.

Travel Card 1988

Travel Card 1988

photoboothJanuary1988

This strip of photos is from my series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here.

Tattoo Man – Part Five

July 3, 2014
Tattoo Man Series, Vintage Photobooth
12 Comments

Polaroids of Tattoo Man’s Lady Love

photoboothTattooMan'sGirlwithBowDon'tOwn

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.

photoboothPolaroidBowTattooMan02

One of two new additions to my photobooth related ephemera collection.

photoboothPolaroidBowTattooMan01

The second new addition.

photoboothTattooPolaroidDetail

Detail from the top polaroid showing a strip of black and white photos ready to be collected.

photoboothTattooManSeries04

With her Tattoo Man. (From my collection.)

photoboothTattooMan'sGirlwithoutBowDon'tOwn EDITED

From Ebay scan.

Leicester Station Found Photo

July 2, 2014
Found Photobooth Photos
17 Comments

photoboothLeicesterFound16:06:02

Leicester Railway Station, 16 June 2002

I found this strip of photos on my way to work when I lived in Leicstershire in the East Midlands in the UK. A friend who was looking through my collection recently, commented that he appears to be very professionally posed before the camera. He does have the knack of presenting himself in a dramatic and interesting way. Could he be a local actor, used to striking a pose without a mirror?

Having turned out of well, I imagine that the photos took too long to process and that the sitter was forced to leave the strip due to the imminent arrival of his train.

This is a standard sized strip of colour photobooth photos which measures 41 x 97 mm.

Dick Jewell’s Film – Katherine Griffiths 1973 – …..

July 1, 2014
Photobooth Art, Photobooth News
27 Comments

FP+spine

I have written about Dick Jewell previously on this blog. In 2011/2012 we worked together on a film of my photobooth photos. With so many Read More

S. Quinn – A Rare Photoweigh Series

June 30, 2014
Photoweigh Photobooth
18 Comments
photoboothPhotoWeigh06

June 23, 1937

Following on from David Simkin’s guest post of last week, above is the first of a very rare series of eight Photoweigh photobooth photos that I own. I have never seen another long sequence of the same person in this type of machine. I have arranged them in correct chronological order, if they are dated but have guessed the order for the rest of them. They were all taken in the UK.

photoboothPhotoWeigh07

June 26, 1937

photoboothPhotoWeigh01

25 (Month obscured), 1938

photoboothPhotoWeigh03

Details faded.

photoboothPhotoWeigh02

On back – June 1939

On the back of this photo is written Douglas, June 1939. I have presumed that to be a place rather than a person’s name, based on the inscription on another photo, below. There is a town called Douglas in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the capital of the Isle of Man is also a town called Douglas. The photo could have been taken in either one of these towns, however, the Isle of Man is the more obvious holiday destination. On consulting David Simkin, he confirmed Douglas on the Isle of Man to have been a popular holiday destination at the time these photos were taken, and therefore the most likely location of the Photoweigh booth.

photoboothPhotoWeigh04

21st of … Other details have faded.

On the back of this photo is written ‘S.Quinn”, which I believe to be the name of the lady pictured in the series.  As the only clearly dated photos were all taken in June of the various years, I like to think that these were a souvenir of her annual holiday, taken at the same time of the year, in the same town and in the same booth over many years.

Each photo measures approximately 40 x 83 mm and they are all printed on a heavier weight stock than is usual for other types of booth photos, but seems to be standard for Photoweigh photos.

For more fascinating information about Automatic Photos and their history please visit  Sussex PhotoHistory and see David Simkin’s guest post on this blog, here.

photoboothPhotoWeigh08

Details of date have faded or it was never dated.

Mr Sy’s Casino of Fun

June 28, 2014
Vintage Photobooth
10 Comments

photoboothMrSy'sCasino#01

photoboothMrSyDetail#04 photoboothMrSyDetail#03  photoboothMrSyDetail#01photoboothMrSyDetail#02

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.

photoboothMrSy'sCasino#02

photoboothCasino of Mr Sy

Backs of the notes showing the correct address on one and a typographical error for the address on the other.

 

1619548_10151827414852167_1625391216_n

Mark in Wellington – Early December 1999

June 27, 2014
Digital Photobooth Images, Photobooth 45 Year Project (Archive)
6 Comments

photoboothEarly12:1999

Early December 1999, Wellington, New Zealand

The only photobooth I was able to find on this trip to visit my travelling buddy Moana in Wellington, was a sticker booth in a game arcade.

I stopped in New Zealand on my way to visit friends in London before going to Dublin to spend Christmas with my sister and her Irish relatives. She and her husband Tim had decided not to make their home in Australia and had returned to live in Ireland where they had first met. They live there to this day.

Moana was working most of my visit and I only managed to get her husband Mark, into the booth. While not my preferred type of photobooth, in the event of nothing better, it is a least a cute souvenir of a trip. To see some previous posts and booth photos of Moana and I together, click here, here and here.

This strip of photos is from my series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here.