A Story of the Photobooth

A Story of the Photobooth

According to the book American Photobooth written by N. Goranin and D. Haberstich, the first known really working photographic machine was a product of the French inventor T. E. Enjalbert, coin operated photographic machine at the World Fair in Paris, but the press weren’t impressed by the results. The inventor of the photo booth like how we know it today, is regarded as Anatol Josepho, a Siberian immigrant to the U.S. who learned the trade of photography to help fund his travels around the world. Josepho patented the ‘photomaton’ in 1925, a photo booth that developed eight photos in eight minutes. He had to raise $11,000 to construct a prototype – that’s nearly $150, 000 in today’s money. Josephos opened the Photomaton Studio at Broadway and 51st Street attracted as many as 7,500 people a day leading to 280,000 customers in the first 6 months, opening until 4 a.m. to meet demand. By the end of the Second World War, there were over 30,000 working photo booths in the US alone, due largely to World War II soldiers exchanging photos with their loved ones. By the end of 1927, a British investor group purchased rights to distribute it in Europe and Canada, started a journey that took the bulky and heavy booth to every country on earth. [1] This article discusses the effects of the photobooth on its subject, the effects on post-war culture and the changes it has experienced.

Photo booths quickly established themselves in popular culture. They appeared in countless TV shows and films, and artists such as Andy Warhol used them as the foundation of artworks. Andy Warhol was the first art promoter of the photo booth. Starting in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Warhol understood the photo booth as a cheap and effective camera, producing photographs that cut to the bone an image perfectly suited for graphic design. Andy Warhol envisioned the color and sense of movement the artist could achieve by combining a variety of poses from the booth. [4] see fig.1. 2 He also used just one frame reinterpreted in different colors and superimposed line drawings. [4] see fig. 2

As a professional photographer, it is important to learn something from the photo booth. To know how to make people feel free and private, make people willing to present their true selves and make them enjoy and having fun in the process of photo shooting will be the key to be exceptional photographer. It is important to shoot the true side of people and it’s also important to make photo shooting as something fun and joyful. I believe photo booth will be a good teacher to show us the ways.

[1]N. Goranin and D. Haberstich, American photobooth. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008.This book was published in 2008. The writer “Näkki Goranin”, a Vermont photographer and historical photograph collector, has had her work shown in galleries, movies, and magazines. A former artist-in-residence with the Vermont Arts Council who is very qualified to write this topic.

This book mentions the origin and the history of photo booth in America, which is very helpful to understand the background of the time that photo booth was invented and how photo booth affect the world since then. Therefore, I will use this source to support my research.

[2]J. Jacobs and J. Jacobs, "How Photo Booth Technology Has Improved Over the Years", TechCo, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://tech.co/evolution-photo-booth-2015-10. [Accessed: 12- Oct- 2017]. This resource is from a website article written by James Jacobs for whom no background information can be found. It summarized the changes of the photo booth in recent 10 years. It shows how several new photo booths combine modern technology which give photo booth a new fate. This will help me to know about photo booth’s following journey in the future. The resource is not from a trustworthy organization, but it doesn’t mention any academic data. It just summarized what’s new recently. Therefore I will use this source to my research paper.

[3]"Photo Booth vs Photographer - A Photo Booth Does What Only the Most Talented Photographers Can Do", BestPhotoBooths, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.bestphotobooths.ca/photo-booth-vs-photographer.html. [Accessed: 12- Oct- 2017]. This resource is form “BestPhotoBooths.ca”, author unknown. It compares the advantages between the photo booth and a live photographer. This website is trying to promote the photo booth in Canada. It’s content is inclined to the benefit of what photo booth can do which photographer can’t. So I won’t use this source to my research paper.

[4]A. Warhol, Andy Warhol photobooth pictures. New York: Robert Miller Gallery, 1989. Andy Warhol was a famous well-known American artist. This book shows his fantastic works with photo booth. It helps to demonstrate what makes photo booth so popular in 1960s and how he affected the photo booth culture. This book was published in 1989 by the Robert Miller Gallery of New York to accompany an exhibition of the photo strips. The author is a well-known world famous artist. Therefore, I will use this source to my research paper.

[5]D. Publishing, Ideas That Changed the World. London: DK Pub., 2010.

It summarized the feature of photo booth and how it changed photography. The author Marien, Mary Warner is a historian, author and professor of history of photography and theory. She is really qualify to write this topic. Therefore, I will use this source to establish the idea of photo booth in my research paper.