25 October 1997, Luna Park, Melbourne

Despite having taken many long hours trying to get all my booth photos in chronological order, my desperately depleted brain seems to have worked against me most spectacularly. For the project with Dick Jewell I initially put all the strips of me alone in booths, in what I thought was the correct order. For phase two of the project I added images of myself and others in booths taken in Australia and around the world. As soon as I thought I’d cracked it, new pics would turn up from some long forgotten box or I’d realise that all those lovely sequences from June to August 1998 were actually a mix of June to August 1998 and 1999.

I really should have changed my hairstyle more often, then such mistakes would have been immediately obvious. To cut a long and frustrating story short, after a considerable break, I now return to adding some of the photos from the series that sparked my passion for photobooth photographs. I hope I’ve finally got everything in the right order.

This picture is one of a strip of four. I am pictured with my dear buddy Coral whom I met when travelling in South America with Helen. Coz was here from France to visit relatives. When we first met in Peru in 1989, she was taking time off from teaching in Sydney. She travelled in the Americas for two years before briefly returning home, prior to decamping to live in a 13th century water mill in France.

If you have a hankering to visit the wilds of the Midi-Pyrénées Coral now runs a successful Bed and Breakfast business from the mill, Moulin du Goth, with her husband Bill. She and Bill have spent many back-breaking years restoring the mill and garden (with a little help from the snail erradication experts, Moana and I). They deservedly receive return visits from guests from all over the world.

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