Iconic Photo Booth Moments From the Last 100 Years
Since the photo booth’s debut 100 years ago, countless miniature images have slid out of these machines to be glued to scrapbooks, pinned on refrigerators, stuffed in drawers, and passed down to children.
Although the technology for automated photographic machines dates back to the 1850s, the first fully functioning, customer-friendly photo booth arrived courtesy of Siberian immigrant Anatol Josepho in 1925. His “Photomaton” was an instant hit from its Times Square studio in New York City, drawing daily crowds of up to 7,500 people who handed over a quarter to receive a strip of eight freshly printed photographs.
Much has changed since the days when a team of attendants was required to guide amazed customers through the photo-taking process and the eight-minute wait for the finished product. Improved versions of the machine eventually delivered their wares far more rapidly, added color, and became a ubiquitous presence in arcades, amusement parks, and transit stations as they waxed and waned in popularity.
But what hasn’t changed is the photo booth’s function as a great social equalizer, which was apparent as soon as New York Governor Al Smith joined the rest of the locals and tourists who lined up to pose for this curious contraption at the height of the Roaring ’20s.
While many of the photo booth’s delicate relics have been lost in the century since its invention, here’s a look at seven survivors that encapsulate the eras in which they were taken.
Unknown Couple, circa 1930
According to American Photobooth by Näkki Goranin, photo booths popped up across the country in the 1930s, offering a variety of experiences. Some studios provided distinct painted backgrounds, while others supplied props such as cardboard cutouts and hats. This unidentified couple from around 1930 seemingly enjoyed the latter option as they wielded a parasol and an assortment of Victorian headgear to enhance their Depression-era garb and spice up the shoot.
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Salvador and Gala Dalí, 1930s
The avant-garde artists known as the surrealists were entranced when the Photomaton arrived in Paris in 1928. Several had pictures taken with their eyes closed, and artist Salvador Dalí was among the lineup featured in this fashion in an issue of La Révolution Surréaliste magazine the following year. Although Dalí was on the outs with the surrealists by the mid-1930s, he commandeered the photo booth for his own amusement and expression, as demonstrated here in a sitdown with his wife and muse, Gala Dalí. The famously eccentric artist was quite taken with the medium of photography, once referring to his paintings as “instantaneous color photography done by hand.”
Marilyn Monroe, 1940
Well before she went by the name Marilyn Monroe and discovered that gentlemen prefer blondes, a teenage Norma Jeane Mortenson showcased her natural brunette curls for a personal photo op in 1940. As described in The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, the future starlet was then exhibiting a little more self-confidence after a childhood spent living in foster homes and with family friends. Finding some stability under the care of Edith Ana Lower, the aunt of her guardian, she began devoting more attention to clothes and makeup during her years at Emerson Junior High School in Los Angeles, realizing that a well-cultivated appearance helped draw positive attention.
World War II Servicemen, circa 1943
Some of the most iconic photos of the 20th century stemmed from World War II, from Joe Rosenthal’s shot of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima to Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph of a sailor planting an impromptu kiss on a woman to celebrate V-J Day. Here, we see the more casual side of the war era: three servicemen crammed into a booth circa 1943. The number of photo booths in the United States reached a peak of 30,000 during the war, as enlisted personnel and their loved ones commonly exchanged these little portraits to serve as mementos during periods of separation.
John and Jacqueline Kennedy, 1953
In 1953, John and Jacqueline Kennedy were not yet the United States president and first lady, but they were still well-known public figures. JFK was a young U.S. senator and scion of a Massachusetts political family, and Jackie was the daughter of wealthy New Yorkers and the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the Washington Times-Herald. As such, the two relished the chance for a quiet moment together in a photo booth shortly after their high-profile wedding in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12, 1953. Exactly where and when this photo was snapped is an open question; the newlyweds were said to have spent their honeymoon in Acapulco, Mexico, but they also reportedly stopped in the Southern California locales of Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara, and may have bunkered down at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly, 1959
As told in Waylon: An Autobiography, up-and-coming musician Waylon Jennings arrived in New York City in January 1959 to crash at the Greenwich Village apartment of Buddy Holly before the pair headed to the Midwest for the Winter Dance Party tour. Sometime during that week, the two native Texans stopped by a photo booth at Grand Central Terminal, with Holly bumming a cigarette off his good friend for the occasion despite his attempts to quit. Less than a month later, Holly and musicians Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (but not Jennings) were on the ill-fated plane that crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, a tragedy memorialized in Don McLean’s hit song “American Pie” as “the day the music died.”
Unknown Photographer, 1980s
Who’s photographing whom? By the 1980s, the public had far more options for snapshot keepsakes than they did when the photo booth debuted in 1925. Many professionals and serious hobbyists enjoyed the sharp images produced by one of the 35 mm single-lens reflex cameras on the market, while amateurs could appreciate the gratification provided by the instant Polaroid camera. It was another decade before the big industry sea change came with the arrival of digital photography in the mid-1990s, and with it, photo booth manufacturers largely began abandoning the old analog process and overhauled their technology to prepare for the 21st century.
