‘Open Air’ vs Traditional Style Photo Booths

The History

The photo booth was invented in 1925 by a Jewish Russian from Siberia. He’d trained in photography in Berlin and run his own portrait photo studio in both Budapest & Shanghai, but after dreaming up his invention, he knew there was only one place in the world to fund & truly launch it, and he immigrated to New York.

Anoatol Josepho built a complex sit-in photo chamber, complete with automated film & print processing, and called it The Photomation. There was genius both in making it work (photography at that time was much more difficult), and in the visionary business model behind all his effort.

Many people who weren’t interested in spending big money and several hours for a portrait sitting, would queue up to spend 25 cents on a strip of eight small prints they essentially created themselves, and had in their hands 8-10 minutes later. Time Magazine reported in 1927 that over a quarter of a million customers had so far passed through this one and only photo booth in the heart of Manhattan.

 Photo credit: https://jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/217395/anatol-josepho-immigrant-introduced-us-selfie/

The Photomation Company that followed, put photo booths in amusement parks, shopping malls, and big train stations etc, from the late 1920’s on, with future USA president Franklin Roosevelt among their board of directors.  Later it expanded to Europe, and eventually even to little old Australia.

An unexpected trend was many young people creating silly photos of themselves just for fun, instead of creating affordable formal portraits like the rest of the population.

Many innovations followed.  In the 1940’s Photoflash photo booths used a flashbulb to freeze movement and improve image quality in lower light (hello today’s LED lit booths, I’m looking at you), while Photomatic Color in the 1950’s pioneered affordable colour portraits, and The Photomatic Super in the 1960’s added text and special effects. 

During the 1970’s & 1980’s photo booth popularity died away as new film & camera breakthroughs made it possible for the average family to create better photos of themselves, then the photo booths of the day were spitting out. Who wants to pay for an ordinary looking photo?

In the late 80’s, every day I walked past a photo booth at Wynyard railway station, on my way to work, and remember thinking ‘the photos from those are so bad, why would anyone use them?’ At the time I worked as a young photographic printer in Sydney CBD’s largest photo lab.  It offered 1 hour film processing & printing.  Not as fast as the photo booths, but the writing was clearly on the wall for them. 

Side note: on my very first day at Klick Photographics in George St Sydney, we had customers screaming blue murder because their photos were over an hour late.  Many were tourists who had trains or planes to catch really soon.  ‘Yes sir, when they’re done we can post your photos & negatives to Argentina’ I ended up telling one gentleman.  It was a different world back then.

The Resurgence

With digital technology arriving during the 2000’s, photo booths were reinvented as a party & event phenomena that could be set up just for you. Wow! Want a photo booth for your wedding, or your 8 year old’s birthday party? It can come to you!

Initially, virtually all of this new generation of booths followed the 1920’s format of a box that you and a friend sat in together. After all, everyone understood this format.  It was a ‘booth’ that you took your own ‘photo’ in, hence the name.

A New Trend

With the arrival of digital, many professional photographers now had the knowledge and resources to build their own photo booths from scratch, and a new trend emerged.

Radicals like ourselves reasoned that Photomation sit-in-the-box style photo booths were perfect for locations that you and a friend or two, went out to together. But what if a photo booth was being designed from scratch for events where many people already knew each other? Like a wedding or a birthday party? Where groups of people who don’t see each other often might want to be in photos together?  Would you design it the same way?

To many photographers who’d run commercial portrait studios for years, the answer was obvious. Create a cross between a shrunk down full blown portrait studio, and a traditional photo booth. Thus, ‘open air’ photo booths were born, where individuals or large groups could stand in between a photo booth ‘structure’ and a backdrop.

Which Should I Hire?

The traditional photo booth design can have nostalgia, and they usually have a smaller footprint than open air designs. If you only have a tiny space, one of these may be your only option. They are also more intimate and a lot of fun.

Open air designs allow more flexibility, and we (who only offer ‘open air’), see an average of over 3.5 people per photo, from most events.

Because open air designs have you standing rather than sitting, some of the resulting photos can also be more dynamic. Guests can dance, jump, photo bomb, bring in unexpected items as props, and use the available space to pose in a larger variety of ways.

The lighting in both styles can be either brilliant or dismal.

Quality Issues

Because every photographer & his/her dog, can now in theory create an open air photo booth of some description, the results can vary. We’ve had wedding reception venues tell us about photo booths the couple’s photographer provided free, that consisted of a camera balanced on a stack of milk crates, connected to an iPad balanced below. Apparently, they didn’t even use gaffer tape to hold it all steady. (Eeeek, no gaffer tape!)

The Final Say

Ultimately, it’s your choice. Do your research and enjoy the results!