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When I first saw this strip I thought it must’ve been a mock-up for a film or advertisement. Surely these two gals couldn’t be for real? Mustn’t this strip of images be a confection made by a jaded advertising man or a prop from a bad taste buddy movie? Once I had the strip in my hand I could see it was genuine. I also found other photobooth photos online from the same venue.

These women fulfill all the bad girl stereotypes – too much makeup, too many tattoos, too many rings, too little clothing, smoking, boozing, bleaching, artificially augmented lips – oh my god I adore them! The pièce de résistance is the cast on the brunette’s arm. Happily her wrist is not too sore to allow her to chug on a bottle of beer. If it had been, we wouldn’t have seen it, as in the strip below. A flash of tattooed thigh isn’t something you generally see in a photobooth either. Another big tick, thanks ladies!

Please scroll down for more. Sadly I don’t own the other strip of the same girls.

The strips were taken at the Cha Cha Lounge in Los Angeles. Below are two of the (less impressive strips) I found on social media.

This is a summary of the changes we saw in Becky in the larger series of strips of Becky and Friends. Becky must have been born in 1955, as from information on one of the strips, she was 22 in 1977.  As many of the photos are undated, the sequence is a guess based on the few confirmed dates from the backs of the strips. I think I have it pretty well correct.

One of my favourite parts of collecting booth photos is seeing the changes in people over time. It is unusual to find so many over such a long period.

Please click on the first photo to see the gallery in a larger format .

photoboothOldStripGirl

photoboothOldStripGirl02

Some older photobooths produced a strip of photos in a horizontal, rather than vertical format. It is rare to find a complete strip like this.

The writing on the back says Lots of Love to my Daddy, Patsy and These pictures were taken of Pat just as she is. We were shopping and had no way of dressing up for the picture. At least that is what I think it says.

In the third picture there is a ghostly “mummy” hand pointing the direction in which she wants Patsy to look. Given she is barely more than a baby, Patsy did very well with her posing.

The strip came from the United States and as you can see is undated. Please click on either image to see a larger version.

I bought this strip of photos from Ebay (of course!) but this one is sentimentally special because it was posted to me at my address in New York City, when I had an apartment there on Beekman Place. For two whole months I was a resident of that great city, with my own place, a gym membership, a favourite local diner and a cool local friend called Kelly.

These two are having a good laugh in what appears to be a relatively recent photobooth strip. I can only imagine how this ended up being sold online so soon after its creation. Was it one of those not-quite-perfect sets that ended up discarded on the ground, prey to someone like me, who loves a found photo?

The lady on the left seems more familiar with the photobooth process than her friend, who appears to be struggling with where to look and how to pose. In the last frame the realisation of the absurdity of her cluelessness takes full effect in an outburst of mutual laughter, making a delightful record of shared experience and friendship.

The quality of this strip isn’t great. It has either been left exposed to direct sunlight for an extended period or was not washed properly in the machine during processing. This item came from the USA and appears to date from the 1950s

Not a spectacular photo, possessing neither a particular period outfit or anything else that makes it stand out, however this young lady is dear to my heart due to her resemblance to a dear friend, Lisa and her daughter, Saskia who is my Buddha Child, as her parents don’t believe in God.

This photo comes from the USA and was with other images that date from the 1930s and 1940s. I would place the time of capturing the fresh face of this young lady as mid 1940s due to the other pictures but think it could as easily be any year up to the 60s.

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