Photobooth Friday (um, even though it's not Friday)

Check out my new Iphone skin!

This is from Skin-It.
A skin is a sticker (so best used in conjunction with a clear case).
But that skin can be customized with your own photo--in this case a photobooth strip of myself and two of my friends.

But imagine how great this could be with your business logo, pics of your kids or grandkids, your dog, etc.
For me it's especially useful now in that the glass is broken on my phone, front and back, so the sticker is actually holding the little pieces of glass in place.
At the same time this is a one-of-a-kind conversation piece.

If you want to order a custom skin, there's a tab on the top of their website "create your own".

Photobooth Friday

It was my birthday last Saturday, so my boyfriend and I stopped at a downtown bar specifically because it has a photo booth.
The images we captured are very poor quality, but fun nevertheless.
These were taken after three mojitos, so we didn't do too great in the pose category (ha!) but I still love these pics.


Boyfriend's Blue Steel face, lol



Thanks, as always, to Hula Seventy for starting Photobooth Friday, and keeping the love alive for vintage booths

Making faces...

I've been so busy, but I'll be catching up soon!

Fun photobooth from a couple of months ago at the San Diego County Fair.

Fun=cramming four girls into a photobooth

Giggling, making memories...
these old-style analog photobooths are the best part of the fair.

Photobooth Fun

Squeezing four people into a photobooth can be interesting



We had sooo much fun at the San Diego County Fair last night.
As usual, we ate our way through.
At least one of us had: artichoke sandwich, Tasty Chips, onion rings, chili cheese fries, red velvet cupcake, sliced green apple with caramel and nuts, iced coffee with chocolate, and....
chocolate-covered bacon (very good!).

We played Skee ball, and considered the Zipper, but we just aren't as young as we once were.
We used to love the Midway with its lights and excitement, and we used to love visiting the barnyard animals, but now we're just happy to spend time together.
We cruised the vendors and bought goodies, we laughed, we talked...
It was enough.

We'll return another day with our families to view exhibits (I love the wood, the photography, and the garden show).
We'll opt for more fun food, because that is part of the Fair's charm.
I want Indian Fry bread, roasted corn on the cob, and funnel cake.

The Fair is an annual tradition for us that holds quality moments and sentimental magic.

Photobooth Friday

I think it's interesting to find artwork that references or uses photobooth strips.
I've posted multi-media work, tee shirts, and fine art, but this is the first tattoo I've seen.
Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day--his right forearm sports a photostrip of his wife, Adrienne.

Photobooth Friday

This smiling, pigtailed girl is from 1940's Germany.
The image is a found photo (well, I purchased it, but same difference, in that I don't know her history).
Something about her appeals to me--perhaps because I used to wear my hair that way in high school gymnastics competitions.

Photobooth Friday

(click on image to enlarge. Icon over flickr image, 'all sizes' will enlarger further)

Christmas gift from my friend Tracie to three of us (the group was originally six, now four).
We've been friends since the early 80's, and take photobooth pics at the fair every year, so there are MANY strips after all this time.
This is sort-of a showcase over all those years.

I will replace the large photo in the center though--not very flattering.
But this is a fun idea.

Tracie modge-podged copies on the frame, then sealed it.
In two places, she embellished with rhinestones.
I'm particularly fond of the photo on the upper left, where we're so young!

Photo Friday

One of the frames from several photobooth strips my friends and I took at the San Diego County Fair last month.
Photobooth pics are our annual tradition.

Photobooth Friday

Collectible M&M's canister, 2004.

Photobooth Friday

Andrea inspired Photobooth Friday.
She says, "the very thought of squeezing into a tiny booth with my family and taking home a souvenir strip or two (or TWENTY) makes me all giddy-like inside."
She wrote project #131

I am so thankful that I grew up in the days of the old analog booths.
My childhood is filled with fond memories of drugstore booth shots, and of cramming into fair booths with groups of friends.
The newer digital booths don't hold the same charm.
And I'm definitely not talking about Apple Photobooth programs either.

This is nostalgia, childhood memories, a piece of past I hope we can keep alive.
Wikipedia info.
More history.

If you want to find photobooth locations near you (both old and new-type machines), click on the locator section of the Photobooth Blog.

Recent NY Times article about photobooths.

"Photobooth: Timeless Self-Portrait Vending Machine", by Tim Garrett.

Collections of images:
*The Photobooth Chronicles
*Wade's Photobooth Gallery
*Startling Moniker
*Lost and Found photos website
*Found Photos
*Photobooth Project
*Flickr Photobooth group
*Flickr Photobooth Friday group

Stumble Upon is a website that offers photobooth-related links, and a chance to meet other people that also love photobooths.

Photobooths in Pop, by Mixup

Books available:
Photobooth by Babette Hines.
And American Photobooth, by Nakki Goranin and David Haberstich.

Build your own: DIY on Instructables.

The Expressive Photobooth, a sort-of Candid Camera/Punk'd-type prank thing.

Or, for a wedding or big party, you can rent a photobooth.
Or here is another company that rents booths. Vintage booth rental here. Several companies are available--check the web.
Ha! There's even the Photoboof!
Wouldn't that be cool?!

Items to buy:
*Stained glass picture frames from Whispering Willow
*Handmade albums for your booth strips, from
the etsy shop of Freckled Nest
*Necklace frame from Fred Flare

Photobooth Friday

My mom in the 1930's.
She thinks she was 12 at the time, but she looks younger to me.
I love the way photos used to be tinted--they looked like little oil paintings...little works of art.

Photobooth Friday is the inspiration of the lovely Andrea at
Hula Seventy.

Photobooth Friday

Me with two of my best friends in the world.
Starting to fade already, but taken sometime in the 90's (when will I learn to date the back?).
We ritually attend the San Diego County Fair (formerly, the Del Mar Fair) and get photobooth shots of us squeezed in (up to five people sometimes) making faces...

I have strips of us all the way back to the early 80's.

Photobooth Friday

(click on image to enlarge)
My grandmother again.
1930's, I'll assume.
I called her Nanny, but her maiden name was Mary Ellen Barnum.

Photobooth Friday

My grandparents, "Nanny" and "Gramps".
My mom's mom and stepdad.

My mom thinks this may have been taken in 1935 at the Pike in Long Beach.
They were crazy in love always.

More photobooth fun over at Andrea's blog.
If I could switch places with anyone, and just step into that life, I think I would choose hers (girl hula)--with bright colors and communication, and introspection, and pretty pictures, and warm smiles.
Yep.

More Photobooth Friday

More Fair fun...

an early Photobooth Friday

 

I couldn't wait all the way until Friday to post this.

I wrote in a poem on this blog a couple of years ago,
about giggling girls in a photobooth, making faces....

I reconnected with old friends at the San Diego County Fair tonight.
There were tears of joy, a restored comfort, and the rest of the world ceased to exist for a few hours.

Magic.

Such a long story, but we chose to meet up here...in the photobooth.
Where so many meaningful moments have played out...

I hope someday we'll be old and gray and still meeting at the fair,
decades of friendship memorialized on little strips of paper.

Photobooth Friday

I'm sure I have more old photobooth strips somewhere, heaped in boxes under old cards and letters and memorabilia. Until I find these treasures, I thought I'd go investigate locations of photobooths in San Diego.

I had heard there were two photobooths at Belmont Park, so today I went to check it out. Belmont Park is home to an old wooden roller coaster, thankfully saved from demolition and another dreaded hotel project when the community rallied to its support back in the 80's.

Today I had envisioned that on a weekday the area would be calm...that I would be one of few people walking around. As I was driving toward Mission Beach, the fog was rolling in off the ocean, giving the sky a white hue. I imagined I would find an old photobooth, like something out of the Twilight Zone, emanating out of the mist.

That was not to be the case.

While I'm glad the roller coaster was saved, and I love the night skyline with its curves lit up in lights, the daytime offers cheesy fun zone fair stuff--not really my idea of a good time.
The photobooths may have at one time been the good ones, the old school ones...but today I just found a digital version within an arcade.
Sigh.
It was my childhood in the mist, disappearing.

Photobooth Friday

I'll guess this photo was taken in the 1930's, to match his wife's image that I posted last week.
His name was Burdette, but most people called him 'Doc'.
I just knew him as Gramps.
He was my mom's stepdad. He was a wonderful man.
I've spoken about him previously.


that hat he's wearing? I still have it.

He was a dentist in the Navy. He was known in Coronado for his wild antics--like stealing captain's chairs from the officer's club and taking them home on his bicycle while the powers that be turned a blind eye.
Like showing up on a whim to see my mom, and bringing the cab driver in to play cards all afternoon.
He made wooden scooters for all the kids, and we were all the envy of the neighborhood. I still have the child's table and chairs that he made for me, as well as a bookcase.

My memories of him are of goodness, kindness, generosity, and laughter.
I miss him dearly.

Photobooth Friday

the pic is damaged, but still lovely.
My grandmother (my mom's mom).
Her name was Mary Ellen.

She has been gone for decades (only 66 years old...too young. I was robbed of more time with her), but not a day goes by that I don't miss her.
I'll guess this shot was taken in the 1930's.