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The Story of the First Photobooth
Daily Ink
Stored in: Tools
Posted On: May 14 2008
By: Bryan Partington
Archival Photo
Modern Mechanix has a 1928 article on the inventor and invention of the "Photomaton", or photobooth, with a keen description and cross-section of the internal components of the photo spewing robot.
The article also has an interesting, if not sensational, recounting of the inventor Anatol Josepho’s rags-to-riches biography. "Ten years ago a penniless prisoner of the Bolsheviks; today an American millionaire!"
The social uses of the new technology are also addressed, ranging from the utilitarian to the superficial.
From experience he knew the human being’s craving, among all races and all lands, for a permanent record of his face. Josepho’s photographic life had likewise taught him the constant demand for utilitarian portraits —for identification cards of all kinds, passports, employment records, expression-study, groups, and so on...
...A department for making enlargements is being installed by some of the large department stores in New York City, where the automatic portrait machine is enormously popular, it is said, with buyers of new hats, new furs, and new “bobs” as well as garments.
I've always been intrigued by the photobooth. Mostly because it takes an expressive medium and reduces it to something entirely mechanical and procedural. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, photobooth photos are often extremely expressive. Think of the antics that groups of teenagers get up to when they discover a photobooth. The article even has a series of photos of presidential candidate Al Smith which show remarkable expressiveness and candor.
On the other hand, photobooths can produce neutral or downright dour identification photos as well. You're specifically instructed not to smile for those.
But what's most intriguing is the way that the article identifies the photobooth with american capitalism and values. There's the shots of the cigar chomping presidential candidate, the very picture of a capitalist fat cat. There's a reference to bourgeois vanity photos following the purchase of a new hat, and the inventor is a former prisoner of russian communists.
Otherwise, in Tools:
- Previously: The Story of the First Portable Digital Camera
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
