Archive

Tag Archives: photobooth

A Pooch Like My First

September 2, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
10 Comments

photoboothStandardPoodleDino

This is not my first dog but this pup is his spitting image. His name was Dino and he, unbeknownst to me at the time, was named after Dean Martin for his dark and lustrous hair. Being only 6 or 7 at the time, I assumed he was named after Dino the dinosaur, the family pet from the Flintstones.

Dino was my first love and I was totally bereft when he died whilst we were on holiday one year. We left him with my grandparents, he got out of their back garden and had an unfortunate altercation with a car.

This standard sized photobooth photo is not entirely in focus, but given my current dog’s performance in photobooths, it isn’t too off the mark for a subject generally so wriggly and squirmy.

Update – 4 September 2015. My friend Mike thinks this dog is wearing a toupee. I agree. It is made from Dean Martin’s quiff. Below is a pic of a human wearing a toupee made from dog hair.

dog-toupee

Tennis Anyone?

August 31, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
23 Comments

photoboothTennisAnyone?

I adore the fact that this young lady thought to take her tennis racket into a photobooth! I’ve never seen another booth photo that memorialises a sport in this way. The background is interesting for its Egyptian theme of palm trees and pyramids. This is also something I haven’t seen before.

In faded handwriting on the back are these words. . .

photoboothTennisBackOriginalBack02

My Spanish is good enough to make out some of the script on the back of this pic, but I am hoping someone out there might confirm that I have it right, or tell me where I have gone wrong!

A mi querida mama con todos el cariño, Julita – To my dear mother with all my love, Julita

The information on the bottom is too faded for me to make sense of. I am assuming it is a place-name and a date, 1945 being part of it?

photoboothTennisBACK01

 

Lori and Me – Part 8

August 27, 2015
Lori and Me, Vintage Photobooth
5 Comments
photoboothdonnaPart8-01

Donna and Lori – 1972

photoboothDonnaPart8-03

Lori and Cheryl – 1972

photoboothDonnaPart8-02

Lori and Cheryl – 1972

This is the penultimate installment in the Lori and Me series. As we get closer to the end, I am getting more and more confused about how to group the photos. The top four of Donna and Lori were taken on the same day as the first strip shown in Part 7. However, they are from a different booth that produced miniature, stamp sized photos. Each of the above photos is dated 1972, so I decided to group them with other miniatures of Donna’s friends.

I have enlarged the last picture of Lori and Cheryl to help you to see the detail of Cheryls extraordinary eyeshadow. Although it looks white in the pictures, I imagine that being the 1970s, it would have been a very pale green or pale blue. I think it looks very cool.

Donna is photographed with many boyfriends and girlfriends over a period of 4 years from 1969 to 1973 in this series of photobooth photos. It has been a long time since I started these posts, so if you’d like to review the previous photos, please click here.

Savoy Ballroom 1939

August 26, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
16 Comments

photoboothHoraceH.SavoyBallroom

This subtly hand-coloured photobooth image is so full of history it is hard to know where to begin. The beautiful serene face of the sitter is what attracted me to this picture but the story behind it is what makes it come alive. If I were able to travel through time to any old photobooth location, this one would be my first choice.

The Savoy Ballroom was a famous music venue in New York. It was owned by gangster Moe Paddon who, it is said, was working as a front for Chicago’s Al Capone. It opened its doors on December 14th, 1926 and closed in 1958. It spanned the whole block of 140th Street to 141st Street on Lenox Avenue in Uptown Harlem. 

There were different types of entertainment at the Savoy such as dancing professionals, dancing competitions and the famous “Battle Of The Bands” which pitted one band against the other. Usually Chick Webb‘s band would compete against another famous band, while the professional dancers would pick the winners. This usually brought the biggest crowds.

Many famous musicians and singers started out or performed regularly at the Savoy, amongst them, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Ella Fitzgerald won a singing contest at another venue in Harlem. When she got a job at the Savoy as a dancer, someone told Chick Webb about her wonderful voice. He auditioned her and signed her as his premier singer. After his death, Fitzgerald continued Webb’s band.

The Horace Henderson, mentioned at the top of the image, was an American jazz pianist, organist, arranger and bandleader. His band was known as the Horace Henderson Orchestra and then as the Dixie Stompers. He was a regular at The Savoy. I wonder if it was a tradition to put the bandleader of the night’s name on the backdrop of the in-house photobooth? The image in it is hard to figure out. Could it be radio towers, cranes from a building site or oil well rigs? Please let me know if you have any ideas what it might be.

savoy

Ted’s Girl, Gail

August 21, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
18 Comments

photoboothGailTedsGirl04
photoboothGailTedsGirl03
photoboothGailTedsGirl02
photoboothGailTedsGirl01

Two of these photos turned up in the post as a surprise gift from my blogging friend in the USA, Ted. A few weeks later another unexpected envelope arrived but this time from one of my favourite Ebay sellers. I was thrilled to find a note and two more of the same series of photos, which had been sent directly from her, but once again were a gift from Ted.

These charming photos of this smartly dressed young lady would look great as an animated GIF. I did try, but without any success. One day if my concentration improves, I will attempt it again.

These American photos are undated. The sitter is identified as Gail.

Les Matons

July 1, 2015
Photobooths in Print
8 Comments
Print_LesMatons1_929

Cover of the book, Les Matons

056-057
On 19 June 1988 in a photobooth at a Barcelona railway station, ​​artists Hélène Fabre and Christian Bonifas made a series of souvenir photos without thinking further than the pleasure of the moment.

Once home in Nîmes, having been amused by their holiday mementos, they sought out another station hall booth. So began their long infatuation with automatic photography.
008-009

022-023
After twenty-five years and more than 1500 portraits they still haunt these mini studios to capture their moods, movements and ideas.

Since 1989, under the pseudonym Les Matons they have exhibited these portraits as enlarged color photocopies.

In 2007, they published their first book, a self-titled paperback showcasing a selection of one hundred booth photographs in black & white and colour. (See cover and sample images from the book, above). With accompanying texts by Clotilde Augot, Rémy Leboissetier, Christine Rodes and Bertrand Guery and a song by Frederic Inigo, it is an ode to the Photomaton machine and the variety of creative uses to which it can be put.

Over 136 pages Hélène and Christian dress-up for, laugh, grimace, writhe and twist through fun and surprising poses that are delightfully entrancing. The artistic perspective of these two performers fills every frame.

In 2013, they released a new book, “Small Nature” which presents sixty-four new photobooth pictures. I will write more about Les Matons and show you some images from that book in a later post.

I’m Feeling Fine

June 27, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
18 Comments

photoboothPostcard04
This is another photobooth postcard from my collection but one published by Auto-Snaps which, to my knowledge, did not also own or operate any photobooths. I can find no reference to this publisher online and have never seen another postcard designed by them.

This young man’s name is Donald. An adult has filled in the address and message –

Having a nice time Auntie.

He has signed the card himself and added three kisses. (Please see the image below.)

Like the other postcards I have posted in this series of three, the message is written in pencil. Unlike the others, this one has been posted without an envelope. It was sent from the seaside resort town of Rhyl in Wales. It is dated June 1937. It is interesting that Rhyl is also the town where Cyril Astor had one of his booths in the 1940s through to the early 70s. I imagine it possible that this was one of his earliest booths. His offices were situated nearby.

To see the previous posts about photobooth postcards please click here and here.

photoboothPostcardBackBlue

A Loving Thought

June 26, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
11 Comments

photoboothPostcard01
Here are three more examples of my Photomaton postcards.

The young lady in the booth photo is wearing fashionable clothes of the late 1920s or early 1930s. She wrote a message on the back, which reads –

Dear Beatie and George. We are having a fine time. Hoping all is well at home. With love from Mayme

The writing is in a childish hand, so the sitter may be a lot younger than she first appeared to me. I had thought late teens but she could possibly be as young as 13 or 14. Her name is difficult to decipher. It could also be read as Mayne. Neither that, nor my first guess are familiar female monikers, so maybe neither is correct.

Below is another example of an unused card. To see some other examples of this type of card please click here.

photoboothPostcard03.02

I Spent My Last Shilling

June 25, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
6 Comments

photoboothPostcard02
I have a small collection of ephemera related to photobooths and these are some of my favourites.

Wherever a photobooth was situated, which was more often than not in seaside holiday towns, there were postcards and postcard vendors. The photomaton company came up with a way of capitalising on the booth’s popularity as a souvenir and the popularity of postcards by combining the two. They produced empty vignette cards with seaside and country themes which had gummed paper backing, into which one could insert a recently made photo from one of their booths.

The top card must have been delivered by hand or posted in an envelope. Written in pencil on the back is –

Just a little snap of me dear. Sorry my hair is so straight. But it’s not so bad is it? Love from Nancy x x

The second card is of the same design as the first. It is one of four I have, which were never used. Below is another example. They all have twee rhymes that are typical of the sentiments found on other types of greeting cards of the time. They all date from the late 1920s to early 1930s

photoboothpostcard03.01

Oh, You Are An Odd Girl.

June 22, 2015
Vintage Photobooth
5 Comments

photoboothBelgium

My one and only photobooth photo from Belgium is a corker! This young lady has a quirky sense of humour. I love her for that. I don’t think I have any other booth photos of anyone in bandages, let alone bandages that are so badly done. I suspect they are just a prop for the photo, but could be wrong. This pic looks even more fabulous enlarged, so please click the image to see it in all its glory.

I really wonder what the rest of the strip looked like and whether there are more mad strips of this girl floating around.

This is a standard sized booth pic that is undated.