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American Photobooth
Friday 15th August 2008
By Näkki Goranin
Title: American Photobooth
Author: Näkki Goranin
ISBN: 978-0-393-33076-2
Publisher: WW Norton & Co
Edition: Paperback
We've all used photobooths at some stage, whether it's for a quickie passport picture,
a souvenir snap of a holiday romance or a drunken stag night. I've even seen a couple having their wedding picture taken in a booth in Brighton, and a young lady posing topless in one in Blackpool although I put these escapades down to organised stunts by a well-known press photographer on quiet news days.
This gem of a book has more than 200 pictures tracing the fascinating 80-year history of the photobooth in the USA. It was in 1926 that Henry Morgenthau paid the inventor of Photomaton $1million for the rights to his new photographic process. He then announced to America that his booths would do for portrait photography what Ford was doing for cars.
It will be a sad day if the high streets around the world ever lose their photobooths.
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