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Say I have an audition. I know, girls, but it is bound to happen, soon. I hear about it at the last minute, and I have to be ready, but quick. I don't have time to go over to the "VOGUE" offices, and have ANNA hand me over to one of her top photographers, for a head shot, so what do I do? I simply step into a photo booth, for a quickie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Except where is one? Do they even exist anymore? What happened to them? They served a purpose that could still be useful.
The first photo booth I recall was in the front of Woolworth's at the Brunswick Mall, on the corner of Georges and Herman Roads. This was back in the day when Rite-Aid was called Sun Ray, and there was a pizza parlor next to it, where the pizza always smelled burnt. There was something a little sleazy to this strip mall; already I was gravitating to that side of life, and, when I got bored at Woolworth's, I would sometimes hide in the photo booth. My mother always knew where to come and find me.
Photo booths almost always turned up on boardwalks, where the sleaze factor is high. I think there is still one outside, to the side of Nathan's, in Coney Island. Not far from where the rest rooms are. Charming, right?
I know technology has replaced the photo shop, buy couldn't a few be restored, for those of us who don't crave immediate gratification, yet could use them in a pinch?
So much fun, at so little cost, and so much help. Where have the photo shops gone? It is a crying shame. They need to be brought back.
Like Gypsy Fortune Telling Booths! And Tunnels Of Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 comments:
You can actually rent one for groovy parties lol
They made a bit of a comeback some years ago, spurred by the popular French rom-com "Amelie" (whose plot hinged on the fated lovers meeting via clues left at photo booths all over Montmarte).
Unfortunately the new versions, as usual, are but a dim imitation of the originals: instead of miraculous Rube Goldberg contraptions syncing a robotic camera to a miniature chemical photo lab, the new booths simply contain a disposable digital camera wired to an ordinary inkjet printer. How ho-hum: talk about killing the magic of it all! Where's the charm in an inkjet print? At least in Tokyo, I gather they use a clever Fuji knockoff of the Polaroid SX-70 concept: the booth spits out real "instant" photo prints! Of course, the oddly romantic Japanese love such baroque technology and are willing to pay a higher price for the experience (a price that would never fly in American shopping malls or boardwalks).
The most romantic photos I have of myself with my partner were taken in a 1960s-vintage black-and-white booth at the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh. This was a very strange thing, because the day before we had had the most vile, relationship-destroying argument two people could possibly have without murdering each other. How the hell that transmuted in the photo booth to beaming affection I will never know, but the 4-pic strip is adorable. I've always regretted being too frugal to spring for the optional custom-sized frame the museum sold in the gift shop ($20 seemed like a lot of scratch to me in 2002). I've never seen another such frame for 4-pic photo booth strips anywhere else.
Victoria,
I did not know, maybe I will
give it a try.
Darling,
Yes, some things were better in the old days.
The trick is finding one, if needed, and that is
not so easy. One cannot just run out to Coney.
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