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The Belle of the Ballroom

Above is another beautiful woman who stopped by the in-house photobooth at the Savoy Ballroom to make a souvenir of her evening out. She is glowing with joy, probably having been dancing up a storm to the big band sounds of Andy Kirk’s orchestra.

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Andy Kirk

Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tuba player, best known as a bandleader of the Twelve Clouds of Joy. His music was popular during the swing era, and he and his band performed regularly at the Savoy. He died aged 94 in 1992, having given up his musical career in the 1950s to concentrate on other pursuits.

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How the band might have looked on the night in 1940 when the top photobooth photo was taken.

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Copyright Steve Bannos of Gargantua (With thanks to Steve)

Also from the Savoy Ballroom photobooth, are the above two images, also dated 1940. Again two lovely women who, no doubt, had a passion for music and dancing.

 

 

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This is not one of my more spectacular photos, however there needs to be a place here for the images for which I have a special feeling. There is a lot of writing on the back of this pic but it has faded so much that all I can make out is To Frances and the possible name of Cecilia, as the sender. She could even be named Cecilie, or even Clara or maybe Cordelia.

I added this photo to my collection as I loved the warmth in this woman’s eyes. Also catching my attention was the none too professional hand-colouring, which makes her hat look more like a washer woman’s head scarf.

I only noticed her jewellery when I scanned the image for this post. Her lapel pin looks like it coud be a coat of arms or crest of some sort. Perhaps it is a membership badge? Her attention-getting neck brooch, with what appear to be dangling pendant-ornaments across the base, is very unusual. It leads me to believe she was a woman of more style than this single photo with its dull colouring might suggest.

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25 November 2000, Luna Park, Melbourne

Me and an old school friend, Lisa in a favourite photobooth at Luna Park.

I still love the old black and white booth photos more than any other type. Unfortunately I am afraid that, like this booth and friendship, they will be gone soon.

Below and from the same year, I kept a travelcard celebrating the facade of Luna Park.

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This strip of photos comes from my series Photobooth 41 Year Project. You can see all the posts that document the series by clicking here. I am still adding to this project using mostly digital booths to create the images. I am growing more and more fond of these newer booths, despite their lower quality output.

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As you may have guessed by now, I love anything to do with photobooths, even the signage from them.

The fifty cents sign is aluminium. I guess that was cheaper to change as the prices went up. The other two are much heavier and possibly made of stainless steel.

They all come from the USA, via France. I bought them from the author of a famous book about photobooth photos, but more about that in another post.

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This fabulous photobooth photo and the story behind it, was emailed to me by artist and fellow blogger Ted Giffin.

This is the story –

On the left is Shannon. She was my sweet 16 girlfriend. I followed her around like a puppy. She moved from Indiana to Virginia Beach, Virginia. She went to the governor’s art school where she met Kathy a.k.a Guido, also an artist. She is on the right.

These two girls changed the course of my life. I believed that if I could make art like these two, then I would be beautiful. During my Freshmen year at Art School, Shannon, who at the time loved tape, taped this in my sketchbook. I had been carrying it around in my wallet, with a guitar pick. That blotch on the image, is worn in by the outline of the pick. As you may notice, they were “goth” punks at the time.

This image was made in a Virginia Beach photobooth, circa 1988. It is still taped into that, almost 30 year old, sketchbook…

I absolutely love it. If it hadn’t been accidentally changed by its time in a wallet, you could almost call it a piece of altered art. I also love Ted’s visual art works, which you can see here.

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As I mentioned in a previous post, images of clowns in photobooths are quite rare. Rarer still is to find a female clown in a photobooth. Of course this could just be a woman dressed up for a costume party. Either way it is a great photobooth photo.

It has just occurred to me that this may be a partner picture to my post of Farmer Jeb, as each image shares the same background and both show people in costume. I am unsure whether these came from the same eBay seller, but if they did, I bought them several months apart.

I would still say I find male clowns quite scary, but I dislike them less, the more I know about them. This lady, if she is a professional entertainer, is definitely not scary!

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I recently used this beautiful photobooth photo for a calling card to promote my blog. I was so enamoured of her face, I failed to notice the brown stain at the top right hand corner. Funnily enough, no one else has noticed it either!

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In the above photos, the sitter looks as glamorous as a silent movie star. As her headdress doesn’t fit with her outfit, I am guessing she is trying out a bridal accessory, possibly to see how it worked in a photograph? Below, without the intricate head-piece, she looks less of a star but very much an elegant woman of the twenties.

These photos were taken on 25 November 1929 at a Photomaton studio in Paris. They came in their original folder which shows the prices you would’ve paid if you had chosen to make enlargements. There is only one photo missing from the strip of six, which would have been cut at the studio, in order that one would stand upright to fit the paper frame.

I cannot work out what the numbers beside the listed countries represent, as they cannot be the price in local currency. Taking Les États-Unis (USA) as an example, the equivalent set of photos in the 1920s would have cost ten cents, not $2.25 or 225 cents. France is listed on the back with 72 beside it, while the price on the front is marked as 6 francs.

The name of the shop or department store that is stamped in purple at the bottom front of the folder, I am unable to make out. I can find no record of anything other than a, now defunct, café at 26, Boulevard des Italiens.

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Outside of folder.

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Inside of open folder.

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Isn’t this a wonderful portrait of what I presume to be a long standing, married couple? There is a relaxed warmth and familiarity between the two. I love their hats and the man’s upturned face and eyes. Is he looking at something or someone, or just good at choosing a comic photographic angle? There seems to be a benign amusement in the woman’s eyes. Is her partner a perennial joker, no longer very funny to her but loved none the less?

Is there anyone out there, who has the time and inclination to work out the inscription on the back of the above photo? Obviously they are names, but the surname of Konrad, is the only word I can make out. I bought this from the USA.

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Here is yet another sweet gift from my friend Ted Stutz of TedBook’s DAILY PICS. As with all of Ted’s gifts, it arrived in the post unexpectedly. I love surprises, but most of all surprise photobooth photos!

Perhaps it is just my fancy, but I do think this lovely lady is the divine actress Meryl Streep. She jumped into a time machine and travelled back to the 1930s. Always a stickler for authenticity, she went there to aid her research into role the of Kate Mundy in Dancing at Lughnasa. Whilst there she couldn’t resist the allure of a local photobooth to appraise her era-appropriate costume and hairstyle.

This photo was taken in the USA on 8 August, 1938. All this beautiful woman needs is a blond dye-job to be Meryl’s spitting image. Do you agree or disagree?

This post is inspired by a series on the blog Tattered and Lost – Vernacular Photography.  Search for Time Traveling Celebrity to see all of the posts in this fun category.

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