HISTORY OF THE PHOTO BOOTH

The Photo Booth will be a century old in 2025 patented in 1925
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By a russian born American inventor named Anatol Josepho, it was not The first automatic photographic process.

Still, it enjoyed immediate, lasting, worldwide success.

Well before it became one of the standard forms of imagery for identity the Photo booth snapshot eked out a place in our way of life and our shared memories

Why was it so successful?
Originally the first booths were set up in amusement parks, department stores, and fairgrounds.

Advertising emphasized that having your picture taken was no longer a mundane task it was now a game, easily accessed by everyone and cheap to use the automatic photo booth replaced The photo studio and the need for a photographer. For the first time, the idea of intimacy was primary.

The subject could turn his back on the lens, pull a face, pose with a friend, a dog, a cigar, or any act of mimicry the subject chose to take.

the history of the photo booth

THE FIRST PHOTOMATON  EIGHT POSES IN EIGHT  MINUTES FOR 25 CENTS

In September 1926 on Broadway New York City the first entirely automatic photo studio Was set up by Anatol Josepho.

A small booth where in a matter of minutes you could obtain eight different identity portraits With a slight sepia tint on a single strip of paper without a photographer.

The shutter clicked automatically after a quarter had been placed in the slot.
The photomaton was born.

It was a simple, reliable cheap process and was an instant success the que stretched down Broadway and soon there were five different booths in operation, Time magazine estimated that in the first 6 months over 280,000 customers had entered the studio.
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In early 1927 Josepho sold the United States rights to the invention for the amazing sum of $1 million dollars to a consortium of investors (more than $12 million by today's standards).

The New York Times reported on the sale in the day's edition.

THE NEW CONSORTIUM

In 1927 The new consortium of investors appoint Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the future president Of the United States as director and move forward to install 220 Photomaton studios 
Country wide before the end of 1928.

The first booths were installed in train stations, amusement arcades, subway stations, and chemist shops.

Throughout the early years of use Photomaton Booths their backgrounds were composed of painted interchangeable sheets which in some cases included an event, the year of the photograph, or the location of the studio.
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Also other services were offered including framing, hand colouring of the portraits, or cutting the strips into single photographs.

THE IDENTITY PORTRAIT

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Paris police dept initiated the filing system for criminal suspects, the files featured photographs, one facing forwards and one in side profile.

Before long the use of photographs was used in the production of identity papers. By the Early 1930s the Photomaton portrait became a recognised standard of identification photography.
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The development of digital imagery in the early nineties changed everything Photo booths could now produce 4 identical photographs in a single pose for the individual purpose of identification.

THE ARTIST IN THE PHOTO BOOTH

It took only three years for the photobooth to be kidnapped from its purely
Financial use. In 1929 the famous magazine “La Revolution Surrealiste” published sixteen Self portraits of the founding members of the surrealist movement. The photo booths portrait Pictures had now moved ahead of identity snaps or basic keepsakes produced at fairgrounds and parks.

It was now about to be a bona fide artistic medium. Up to the 1990s many artists found salvation within the constraints of the photo booth. The small space,basic lighting,short pose time and the frequent imperfections were a source of constant inspiration and a challenge to produce the effects they were looking for.

THE SURREALISTS

In 2003 during a sale at the Hotel Drouot in Paris the Andre Breton collection was dispersed to various collectors And private museums among the amazing collection were a large number of photo booth snippets of Breton as well as Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, Suzanne Muzard, the Privets and Yves Tanguy.

These snippets stored away by Breton in his studio show the enthusiasm that the 
Surrealists felt for the Photomaton after its arrival in France.

The Surrealists frequented the Photo Booths of Luna Park amusement arcade in Paris Where they took a vast number of self portraits the Photo Booth as an art form had arrived.

ANDY WARHOL

In 1965 at the request of a New York art collector Ethel Scull Andy Warhol
Undertook a series of commissioned portraits.

In a Photo Booth at the corner of West Fifty-Second Street and Broadway
Dozens of four shot strips were taken, after carefully selecting 24 of them 
(Ethel was known to be very critical) they were transformed into a silk screened 
Mosaic made up of 36 frames each a different colour.

The piece was called “Ethel Scull 36 times” and is now considered a major pop art piece of the period and now hangs in the Warhol museum.
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Up until his death in 1987 Wahol did over a thousand commissioned portraits rumour has it that people paid over $25000 to stand in front of the famous lens of the “Pope of Pop Art”

THE MUTOSCOPE

A new Photo Booth appeared on the market in 1934 that would revolutionize the
Market. The Mutoscope Company of New York produced a smaller more compact version With an art deco style it truly was beautiful to look at, due to its smaller style it could be placed in a greater diversity of locations.

The Mutoscope Company was owned by William Rabkin, already a millionaire from novelty film machines placed in arcades and fairgrounds; he bought out the copyright of the Photomaton and the Photomatic was born.

It was half the size of the original and a lot lighter; it could also be broken down into 4 parts. It was also a much better looking machine.
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By 1940 an improved version was patented and was now big business in the USA.
Take into account that the average gross income of the time was around $1600 a year and that a well placed Mutoscope could easily gross over $5000 it was a great business.