Product Description

A fascinating history of an American institution that includes an extraordinary collection of photobooth images.

"That a perceptive, dedicated, and sensitive artist like Näkki Goranin has rescued from oblivion so many amazing self-portraits created by amateurs confronting themselves in the fleeting privacy of humble photobooths is yet another miracle for which we can be grateful."—from the foreword by David Haberstich

Generally relegated to the realm of kitsch, the history and cultural importance of the photobooth has long been overlooked. Here, Näkki Goranin documents the invention, technological evolution, and commercial history of the photobooth with extensive illustrations culled from twenty-five years of collecting. Complementing this history is a powerful collection of heartbreaking, funny, and absolutely beautiful photobooth images. These often solitary figures—seeking freedom, confession, a thrill—are evocative of a lost time and place. Haberstich writes, "For anyone who assumes that photobooth pictures are perfunctory, utilitarian records at best, the range of emotions and moods portrayed by the subjects of [this] collection is a revelation." Over 200 color and black-and-white photographs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #827557 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Booklist
Like many other American inventions, the DIY photo-portrait machine was the brainchild of immigrants, each of whom approached slightly differently the challenge of putting a developing and printing lab, along with a good camera, in the same box with a sitting studio and making the whole shebang percolate at the drop of a quarter. Goranin briefly recaps the careers of those inventors, as well as notable exploiters of the technology once it was in production. They’re such an interesting lot that one wishes she had applied that last bit of polish to her prose (she is addicted to dangling modifiers). For many, the fact that the photo booth is still made, however modified, and gainfully employed will be the text’s big revelation. Meanwhile, the gallery of photo-booth portraits Goranin has amassed, and, as a photographer, contributed to, constitute the book’s big attraction. These faces of six decades are everything their autoportraitists could have hoped they would be—silly, joyous, friendly, loving, frank, naughty, honest—and charming besides. Spellbinding. --Ray Olson

Review
"That a perceptive, dedicated, and sensitive artist like Nakki Goranin has rescued from oblivion so many amazing self-portraits created by amateurs confronting themselves in the fleeting privacy of humble photobooths is yet another miracle for which we can be grateful." David Haberstich"

About the Author
Näkki Goranin, a Vermont photographer and historical photograph collector, has had her work shown in galleries, movies, and magazines. A former artist-in-residence with the Vermont Arts Council, she owns three vintage photobooths.

Customer Reviews

"The ultimate pedestrian art."


Aside from the nostalgia of this collection, American Photobooth is a fabulous coffee table book, a varied collection of black and white and color images from the photobooths that have contributed to this country's collective photographic history- literally the faces of friends, strangers, couples, service men and their girls soon off to World War II, a stunning compilation reproduced on high quality paper, the images prefaced with a detailed history of the photobooth.

It all began with the 1894 invention of a Parisian vending machine. Once the concept of the coin-operated vending machine was embraced by an evolving popular culture, these booths became a favorite pastime, "the ultimate pedestrian art". Over the years the concept developed, along with techniques to streamline the process, photo strips available to customers for twenty-five cents. A number of entrepreneurs contributed to this emerging art form that could be found in storefronts, department stores and virtually any place one of these booths would fit. The technology progressed with the times, from a "plumbless" machine that no longer required a water supply to various chemical paper treatments that allowed quick-drying, cost-efficient results.

Over the years, booths were refined redesigned and updated under a series of names: Photomaton, Phototeria, Mutoscope Photographics, Photo-Me USA, Tru-Photo and Photo-Dome, through a number of innovative family-owned enterprises appearing everywhere, including the Depression. By the 1970s color strips arrived; by the 80s chemical photobooths were nearly phased out. The first art promoter to use the photobooth, Andy Warhol made the images part of the American artistic lexicon. But for those of us who ever posed with a friend, inserted a quarter and received a strip of four pictures, this book is a reminder of simpler days. Although "this American tradition stands on the brink of extinction". Goranin's wonderful collection offers a trip to the past, from the early 20th century, page after page of smiling faces hoping to capture a moment in a fast-moving world. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

Fascinating history. Visual goldmine!!!

The title of this book is perfect. What American hasn't had that moment in a photo booth waiting for the
flash of light, deciding second to second what pose to strike with or without accomplices? And then...
the wait for the magical strip of photos.

It's fascinating to find that this seemingly American invention was not invented by an American.
Even the history of the photobooth is filled with photos and ephemera about this "American" institution.
American Photobooth addresses this sociological phenomenon in a concise and fascinating way.
Who knew the depth of history to the everyday photobooth?

A great read and visual feast. A fabulous collection of photos, evoking the human spirit, its highs and lows.

A wonderful slice of self posed American life
After reading a "New York Times" interview with Nakki Goranin, the author of American Photobooth, we took a walk along Broadway between 51st and 52nd Streets. Goranin, calls this site of the first Photomaton "a landmark in photo history." (An extract from the interview and an incredible picture from its early "landmark" days appears in a link in the first Comment.)

Goranin provides a fascinating history of the Photomaton and its offspring, and touches on its modern counterpart incorporating digital rather than chemical based photography. Famous names like Al Smith, Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and Andy Warhol pepper American Photobooth.

(Andy Warhol: Photography is an excellent collection of images and essays on Warhol's interest in photography. Andy Warhol Photobooth Pictures is a catalog of Warhol's 1989 exhibition held by the Robert Miller Gallery in New York; the catalog makes the point that "there's this incredibly close resemblance of the photo booth to the Catholic confessional. You went in and drew the curtain, and suddenly you're alone with the priest.". Photobooth by Babbette Hines contains an abbreviated history of the device, and Google Books displays a number of interesting photos from the book.)

The history of the device is interesting but much more compelling are the wonderful images of ordinary people displayed in American Photobooth. The quality varies, of course, but one can create endless stories based on the poses, costumes, expressions and actions of the subjects. It is fascinating to compare the images here, where the subjects basically determine their own images, with the snapshots in The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978, where the photographers almost invariably played a significant role in creating the images.

American Photobooth is a book I'll return to over and over again.

Robert C. Ross 2008