You can be yourself, without judgment, and have something to hold physically in your hand as a memento of an exact moment in time.
Emily Botelho
Who doesn’t love a photobooth? Out at a bar on a Friday night, at a wedding, at a county fair, there’s no better moment than finding a photobooth and piling in with your pals. There’s a certain timeless magic about the experience of a photobooth, preserving an otherwise fleeting moment in time within a physical strip of images captured instantly while inside a tiny box. Of course, the most magical of these booths are the analog photobooths that still use real film, adding to the retro feel of the experience and producing the type of image that their digital counterparts simply cannot.
Like so much analog technology from the past, film photobooths are experiencing something of a resurgence. As people clamor for tactility, warmth, and authenticity as an antidote to our digital, AI-saturated modern age, photobooths are back, baby! In LA, a Photobooth Museum appeared in Silver Lake a few months ago, with lines circling the block to get in. From the photobooth company Photomatica, there’s another Photobooth Museum location in San Francisco. Photobooth lover and technician for Autophoto, Emily Botelho, epitomizes this moment, launching a personal project entitled Four Poses Five Minutes, in which she’s on a mission to visit every remaining analog photobooth in the world.
I reached out to Botelho to learn more about her photobooth fascination, her progress with Four Poses Five Minutes, and how the magic of the analog photobooth has stood the test of time. Her responses to my questions are below, edited lightly for clarity and length.
What’s your personal relationship to photobooths and photography? How and why did you first fall in love with photobooths? Do you have a clear memory of the first photobooth you ever went into?
I picked up my first camera at around six or seven. I always had a disposable camera at every opportunity, but I started to take it a little more seriously when I was around 14. My high school didn’t offer any photography classes at the time, so my uncle helped me choose my first 35mm SLR, which I used at night school at the local college to learn the basics. I’ve had periods in my life where I was working as a photographer for club nights and local bands (and did a few weddings once upon a time), but I mostly take pictures of my kids and family vacations.
I’ve been using analog photobooths for as long as I can remember, mostly for passport photos or if my mum needed pictures of me for school activities, etc., but it was love at first sight. I grew up with 35mm film, which meant developing vacation pictures usually took a full week. Being able to sit in a booth and get a picture in three minutes was magical to five-year-old me.
I don’t remember the exact first time I used a photobooth, but I remember how exciting they were and how I would beg my mum to let me go in every one we passed.
For a lot of people my age, who have memories before everything went digital, analog technology will always be special.
What is it about photobooths that makes them so special and worth the sort of project you’ve created in Four Poses Five Minutes?
For many people my age, who have memories before everything went digital, analog technology will always be special. We’ve lived through the extinction and then resurrection of film photography, vinyl, even cassette tapes– and the booths are the same. I vividly remember the first time my iPhone died before it was backed up, and I lost pictures of my daughter as a small baby. I got this idea that the archive of our lives has to be more tangible. I’ve been visiting booths for my whole life, so I couldn’t think of anything more special to document and share in this way.
When did you first launch Four Poses Five Minutes? What inspired it? How far along are you?
The project started in June 2024. My mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer a couple of months before, and had decided to come and visit us in Canada because the doctor had given her about 2 years. Things deteriorated very quickly, and she died 4 weeks later, just two weeks after I gave birth to my third baby.
When we knew it was bad and that she didn’t have much time left, we talked a lot about regrets (she had none, classic Jane), and she felt like she had lived a really joyful life. So when she was gone, and I was (and arguably still am) completely broken, all I tried to do was hold on to things that brought me joy. Visiting these booths whenever my family and I travel or find ourselves in new cities made me happy, so I wanted to make more of an effort to document those moments.
At the time of writing this, I’ve been to 110 booths, and this project has led to some incredible experiences—even landing me a job as operations manager with one of the biggest operators of analog photobooths in the world, AUTOPHOTO.
What are the sorts of things you look for in a photobooth or a photobooth experience?
Most importantly, that it’s on and working, which is never guaranteed. I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of work that goes into keeping these machines running smoothly (or sometimes even just running at all).
Do you have a favorite photobooth (or a few favorites) that you’ve visited? What makes these booths stand out over the others?
I cut my teeth on the 1960s Model 17 Photobooth at Fred Aldous in Manchester, UK. I was 22 when it arrived in the city, long after all of our mall and train station booths had gone digital, so it felt like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one. They added a color booth in 2013, which was just the cherry on top. I was lucky enough to use them both for over a decade, even after we moved to Canada, and they remain my most treasured experiences.
The color booth at Sylvan Beach, NY, is another favorite. It just finished its final season after 34 years at Carello’s Carousel and Arcade. It’s a special booth for so many people for so many reasons, but it’s special to me because after her long tenure in upstate New York, she’s coming back with me to Canada when I take ownership of her this Saturday!
Analog photography just can’t be replicated by digital, no matter how hard it tries.
What does an analogue photobooth offer in terms of experience and end product that taking digital photos on a cell phone simply doesn’t?
There’s this magic of the experience, but on a more practical level, analog photography just can’t be replicated by digital, no matter how hard it tries. The combination of the chemical anomalies (meaning no two strips are ever the same), light leaks, flaws in the paper, and the use of top and bottom flashes– all of these make up what Tim of Photobooth.net calls “the secret sauce.” I also think that when you are paying around $7-8 for an experience, you take a little more time in savouring it.
Why do you think photobooths have stood the test of time?
Like many things built before the days of hyper consumerism and disposable goods, photobooths have been built to last by design. A tagline that gets thrown around in the niche community of photobooth lovers is “Tangible Memories,” and I think that encapsulates the mood for most of us. You can step into a photobooth with friends, lovers, your family, and leave with proof you were there. There’s no digital copy floating around in the ether; it’s just you and the machine as the photographer. You can be yourself, without judgment, and have something to hold physically in your hand as a memento of an exact moment in time. Which I honestly feel is just so magical.
The post Emily Botelho on the Magic of Analog Photobooths appeared first on PRINT Magazine.