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A photo booth is a
vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fir ...
or modern kiosk that contains an automated, usually
coin-operated A currency detector or currency validator is a device that determines whether notes or coins are genuine or counterfeit. These devices are used in a wide range of automated machines, such as retail kiosks, supermarket self checkout machines, ...
, camera and film processor. Today, the vast majority of photo booths are digital.


History

The patent for the first automated photography machine was filed in 1888 by William Pope and Edward Poole of
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
. The first known really working photographic machine was a product of the French inventor T. E. Enjalbert (March 1889). It was shown at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. The German-born photographer Mathew Steffens from Chicago filed a patent for such a machine in May 1889. These early machines were not reliable enough to be self-sufficient. The first commercially successful automatic photographic apparatus was the "Bosco" from inventor Conrad Bernitt of Hamburg (patented July 16, 1890). All of these early machines produced ferrotypes. The first automatic photographic apparatus with negative and positive process was invented by Carl Sasse (1896) of Germany. The modern concept of photo booth with (later) a curtain originated with
Anatol Josepho Anatol Marco Josepho (born Anatolу Markovich Yozefovich, russian: Анатолий Маркович Йозефович, later germanized as Anatol Josephewitz; March 31, 1894 – December 16, 1980), was a Jewish immigrant to the United States ...
(previously Josephewitz), who had arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 1923. In 1925, the first photo booth appeared on Broadway in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. For 25 cents, the booth took, developed, and printed 8 photos, a process taking roughly 10 minutes. In the first six months after the booth was erected, it was used by 280,000 people. The Photomaton Company was created to place booths nationwide. On March 27, 1927, Josepho was paid $1 million and guaranteed future royalties for his invention. In the United Kingdom, entrepreneur
Clarence Hatry Clarence Charles Hatry (16 December 1888 – 10 June 1965) was an English company promoter, financier, bankrupt, bookseller and publisher. The fall of the Hatry group in September 1929, which had been worth about £24 million (), is cited as a co ...
established the Photomaton Parent Corporation, Ltd., in 1928.


Operation

After money has been inserted in the machine, multiple customers can enter the booth and pose for a set number of exposures. Some common options include the ability to alter lighting and backdrops while the newest versions offer features such as cameras from a variety of angles, fans, seats, and blue screen effects. Some establishments even offer costumes and wigs for customers to borrow. Once the pictures have been taken, the customers select the pictures that they wish to keep and customize them using a
touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
or pen-sensitive screen. The touch screen then displays a vast array of options such as virtual stamps, pictures, clip art, colorful backdrops, borders, and pens that can be superimposed on the photographs. Features that can be found in some sticker machines are customizing the beauty of the customers such as brightening the pictures, making the eyes sparkle more, changing the hair, bringing a more reddish color to the lips, and fixing any blemishes by having them blurred. Other features include cutting out the original background and replacing it with a different background. Certain backgrounds may be chosen so when the machine prints out the picture, the final sticker will be shiny with sparkles. Finally, the number and size of the pictures to be printed are chosen, and the pictures print out on a glossy full-color 10 × 15 cm sheet to be cut up and divided among the group of customers. Some photo booths also allow the pictures to be sent to customers' mobile phones. Other photo places have a scanner and laptop at the cashier's desk for customers to scan and copy their original picture before they cut and divide the pictures amongst their group.


Types of photo booths


Passport photo booths

Most of the photo booths are used for
passport photo Photo identification or photo ID is an identity document that includes a photograph of the holder, usually only their face. The most commonly accepted forms of photo ID are those issued by government authorities, such as driver's licenses, ide ...
s. They are coin-operated automated machines that are designed to print a photo in a specific format that meets the passport photo requirements. Multiple copies can be printed so users can save some for future uses. Traditionally, photo booths contain a seat or bench designed to seat the one or two patrons being photographed. The seat is typically surrounded by a curtain of some sort to allow for some privacy and help avoid outside interference during the photo session. Once the payment is made, the photo booth will take a series of photographs, although most modern booths may only take a single photograph and print out a series of identical pictures. Before each photograph, there will be an indication, such as a light or a buzzer, that will signal the patron to prepare their pose. Most booths will use artificial lighting, which may be
flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...
or continuous lighting. After the last photograph in the series (typically between 3 and 8) has been taken, the photo booth begins developing the film — a process that used to take several minutes in the old "wet chemistry" booths, but is now typically accomplished in about 30 seconds with digital technology. The prints are then delivered to the customer. Typical dimensions of these prints vary. The classic and most familiar arrangement from the old style photo booths is four pictures on a strip about 40 mm wide by 205 mm long; digital prints tend to have a square arrangement of two images above two images. Both black and white and colour photo booths are common in the US, however in Europe the colour photo booth has almost entirely replaced black and white booths. However, newer digital booths now offer the customer the option of whether to print in colour or in black and white. Most modern photo booths use video or digital cameras instead of film cameras, and are under computer control. Some booths can also produce stickers, postcards, or other items with the photographs on them, rather or as well as simply a strip of pictures. These often include an option of novelty decorative borders around the photos.


Photo sticker booths

Photo sticker booths or photo sticker machines originated from Japan (see ''Purikura'' below). They are a special type of photo booth that produce photo stickers. Still maintaining huge popularity in Japan, they have spread throughout Asia to Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China, Vietnam, and Thailand. They have also been imported to Australia. Some have also begun appearing in the United States and Canada although they failed to make any impression in Europe when introduced in the mid-1990s.


Purikura

In Japan, refers to a photo sticker booth or the product of such a photo booth. The name is a shortened form of the registered
Atlus is a Japanese video game developer, publisher, arcade manufacturer and distribution company based in Tokyo. A subsidiary of Sega, the company is known for video game series such as ''Megami Tensei'', ''Persona'', ''Etrian Odyssey'' and ''Trau ...
/
Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...
trademark , the first ''purikura'' machine, introduced to arcades in 1995. Purikura produce what are today called
selfies A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as Face ...
. Purikura is essentially a cross between a traditional license/passport photo booth and an
arcade video game An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...
, with a
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
which allows the manipulation of digital images. It involves users posing in front of a camera within the compact booth, having their images taken, and then printing the photos with various effects designed to look ''
kawaii ''Kawaii'' is the culture of cuteness in Japan. It can refer to items, humans and non-humans that are charming, vulnerable, shy and childlike.Kerr, Hui-Ying (23 November 2016)"What is kawaii – and why did the world fall for the ‘cult of c ...
''. It presents a series of choices, such as desired backdrops, borders, insertable decorations, icons, text writing options, hair extensions, twinkling diamond tiaras, tenderized light effects, and predesigned decorative margins.


History of purikura

Purikura has roots in Japanese ''kawaii'' culture, which involves an obsession with beautifying self-representation in photographic forms, particularly among females. Purikura originate from the
Japanese video game Video games are a major industry in Japan. Japanese game development is often identified with the golden age of video games, including Nintendo under Shigeru Miyamoto and Hiroshi Yamauchi, Sega during the same time period, Sony Computer Enterta ...
arcade industry. It was conceived in 1994 by Sasaki Miho, inspired by the popularity of girl photo culture and photo stickers in 1990s Japan. She worked for a Japanese game company,
Atlus is a Japanese video game developer, publisher, arcade manufacturer and distribution company based in Tokyo. A subsidiary of Sega, the company is known for video game series such as ''Megami Tensei'', ''Persona'', ''Etrian Odyssey'' and ''Trau ...
, where she suggested the idea, but was initially rejected. Atlus eventually decided to pursue Miho's idea, and developed it with the help of a leading Japanese video game company,
Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...
, which later became the owner of Atlus. Sega and Atlus introduced ''Print Club'', the first purikura, in February 1995, initially at
game arcades An amusement arcade (often referred to as a video arcade, amusements or simply arcade) is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such as cl ...
, before expanding to other popular locations such as fast food shops, train stations,
karaoke Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music i ...
establishments and bowling alleys. '' Game Machine'' magazine listed ''Printing Club'' as Japan's most successful
arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...
in the non-
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
category during early 1996, and it went on to become the overall highest-grossing arcade game of 1996 in Japan. By 1997, about 45,000 ''Purikura'' machines had been sold, earning Sega an estimated () or annually from ''Purikura'' sales that year. ''Print Club'' went on to generate over in sales for Atlus and Sega. The success of the original Sega-Atlus machine led to other Japanese arcade game companies producing their own purikura, including
SNK is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...
's ''Neo Print'' in 1996 and
Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casino ...
's ''Puri Puri Campus'' (''Print Print Campus'') in 1997, with Sega controlling about half of the market that year. Purikura became a popular form of entertainment among youths in Japan, then
East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
, in the 1990s. To capitalize on the purikura phenomenon, Japanese mobile phones began including a
front-facing camera A front-facing camera, commonly known as a selfie camera, is a common feature of cameras, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and some handheld video game consoles. While stand-alone cameras face forward, away from the operator, tab ...
, which facilitated the creation of
selfies A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as Face ...
, during the late 1990s to early 2000s. Photographic features in purikura were later adopted by
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
apps such as
Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and Snapchat, including scribbling graffiti or typing text over selfies, adding features that beautify the image, and photo editing options such as cat whiskers or bunny ears.


3D selfie photo booths

A 3D selfie photo booth such as the Fantasitron located at
Madurodam Madurodam (, opened 1952) is a miniature park and tourist attraction in the Scheveningen district of The Hague in the Netherlands. It is home to a range of 1:25 scale model replicas of famous Dutch landmarks, historical cities and large develop ...
, the miniature park, generates
3D selfie A 3D selfie is a 3D-printed scale replica of a person or their face. These three-dimensional selfies are also known as 3D portraits, 3D figurines, 3D-printed figurines, mini-me figurines and miniature statues. In 2014 a first 3D printed bust of a ...
models from 2D pictures of customers. These selfies are often printed by dedicated 3D printing companies such as
Shapeways Shapeways, Inc. is a global, 3D printing marketplace and service, publicly traded company. Users design and upload 3D printable files, and Shapeways prints the objects for them or others. Users can have objects printed in over 55 materials and f ...
. These models are also known as 3D portraits, 3D figurines or mini-me figurines.


Different types of photo booths

File:Photoautomat 12.jpg, A photo booth in a public building in Germany File:OZ4TWOBOOTH- Mirror Me Booth- Bunnings Box Hill Victoria Australia- Energizer Event on 29082017-2.jpg, Mirror Me Photobooth in Victoria, Australia File:Crowd in Lot 10 Photo Booth Event MagicMirror.jpg, An open-plan photo booth in Lot 10 Shopping Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia File:Purikura Booth 2.JPG, A ''purikura'' photo booth in Fukushima, Japan File:3D selfie in 1-20 scale as received from Shapeways, the printer company for Madurodam's Fantasitron IMG 4557 FRD.jpg, A 3D selfie in 1:20 scale printed by
Shapeways Shapeways, Inc. is a global, 3D printing marketplace and service, publicly traded company. Users design and upload 3D printable files, and Shapeways prints the objects for them or others. Users can have objects printed in over 55 materials and f ...
using gypsum-based printing File:Fantasitron photo booth at Madurodam can scan up to two people at a time IMG 3797 FRD.jpg, Fantasitron 3D selfie photo booth at Madurodam


Cultural significance of photo booths


Purikura

Purikura offer rare insight into Japanese popular culture, specifically girl culture. Purikura is a social activity, never done alone. It is also now an established form of entertainment, with most Japanese having tried it at least once. The wide lexicon associated with purikura also reveals that it has grown outside
kawaii ''Kawaii'' is the culture of cuteness in Japan. It can refer to items, humans and non-humans that are charming, vulnerable, shy and childlike.Kerr, Hui-Ying (23 November 2016)"What is kawaii – and why did the world fall for the ‘cult of c ...
culture; erotic purikura, creepy purikura, and couples purikura are all genres of this popular form of self-photography. Graffiti purikura, an alternative genre of purikura, represents young females' desire to rebel from traditional gender roles.Miller, Laura. 2003. "Graffiti photos: Expressive art in Japanese girls' culture." ''Harvard Asia Quarterly'', Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 31-42. In order to contradict stereotypical images of Japanese women as docile and meek, graffiti purikura photographers may photograph themselves in unflattering fashion or add stickers which defy cuteness, such as the poop emoji. Rather than simple conceited frivolity, purikura photography demonstrates ingenuity and creativity on the part of young Japanese women seeking forms of self-expression.


Flinders Street Station photo booth

Located at the Elizabeth Street exit of Melbourne's busiest railway station,
Flinders Street Station Flinders Street railway station is a train station located on the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Opened in 1854, the historic station serves the entire metr ...
, lies a culturally significant photo booth. The photo booth has been continuously operating at the station since 1961, with many feeling it has become an iconic and irreplaceable part of the station. It has been maintained for the entirety of its life by owner Alan Adler. During May 2018, Mr Adler (then 86) was given 10 days notice to remove the photo booth by Metro Trains Victoria to make way for station upgrades. Alan informed passerby with a hand written note explaining the news prompting widespread backlash from the public and support for Alan and his photo booth. After a letter writing campaign to Metro Trains, Public Transport Victoria CEO Jeroen Weimar phoned Alan to apologise and assured him a new home would be found. Days later they successfully relocated the photo booth to another location within Flinders Street Station. The photo booth shoots analogue images in black and white and joins 3 images together vertically.


Photo booths for parties

Photo booth rental companies allow a person to rent a photo booth for a short period of time (usually in hours) for a fee. Photo booth rentals have become popular in the United States primarily for
wedding reception A wedding reception is a party usually held after the completion of a marriage ceremony as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception: the couple ''receive'' society, in the form of family and friends, for t ...
s, sweet sixteen parties,
Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...
and Bat Mitzvah parties, along with a growing number of other public and private events. In addition to the photo booth and the printing of unlimited photo strips, rental companies usually include a photo booth attendant to service the photo booth and to help guests construct the guest book of photo strips. Online image hosting, compact discs containing the images and related merchandise are readily available. Celebrities are frequent users of photo booths in parties. Apart from traditional photo printing, modern photo booths may also include the following new functions: *
Animated GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
*
Flip book A flip book, flipbook, flicker book, or kineograph is a booklet with a series of images that very gradually change from one page to the next, so that when the pages are viewed in quick succession, the images appear to animate by simulating moti ...
printing * Virtual props, placed intelligently on the person's eyes or shoulders etc. * Slow-motion video * Green-screen background removal * Fun costume virtual dressing * Games - mostly Kinect body gesture controlled games, and print a photo of the person and his/her scores * Facial gesture recognition


Growth of photo booth rentals

As digital cameras, compact photo printers, and flat screen computer monitors became widely available in the early 2000s, people connected these together using a personal computer and software and created their own photo booths. Entrepreneurs began renting machines built along these lines at weddings and parties and the idea spread. From 2005 to 2012, interest in the United States for photo booth rentals grew significantly. By 2016 more people were searching for photo booth rentals than DJ rentals in 15 of North America's largest cities. In Greater Los Angeles alone, there are now more than 600 photo booth rental companies. Photo booth rentals have also become popular in other countries such as Canada, Australia, and the UK. So far in 2016 there is an average of 226,000 monthly searches for a photo booth globally. This has risen by 48.9% since 2015 (in the UK alone this is nearly 20,000 searches a month).


References

* Massen, Ernst: Kleine Geschichte der Fotoautomaten (Short history of the automatic photo apparatus) – in: Photo Antiquaria 103 (April 2011)


Further reading

* * * * * * * *


External links

{{Commons category, Photo booths
Photobooth.net
a resource covering the history of photobooths in art and culture, and listings for present locations of photochemical photobooths
"Photo Made In Half Minute" ''Popular Mechanics'', May 1935 right hand of page
Photography equipment Vending machines Japanese popular culture South Korean popular culture Photography