Friday, March 03, 2006

Photobooth Friday #5: Voyage into the Future.

Max, Zöe and I went on a wild goose chase yesterday looking for a photobooth. We tried to follow this lead, but ran into a dead end. There the photobooth sat, alone and broken, in an "employees only" section of the store. So sad. It would have been sweet if it had worked out, as it's super close to our house. But no such luck. An employee told me that it's been broken for months, the repair company is in Texas, and it doesn't matter anyway because due to the chemicals in the film development process these types of old school photobooths are illegal in Oregon. What? Is that true? I must investigate...

So we headed to the mall to try one of the new digital booths. I'm still not sure how I feel about the new ones. I tend to be very resistant to change and everything about it was just so different. Rather than spinning the cool blue stool to get the perfect height for the frame, there are buttons for adjusting the view of the camera and the bench is fixed. There is a monitor where you can see yourselves, but the lens is below that. Max was able to understand that he needed to look into the lens instead of at the monitor, but Zöe was too little to grasp that concept. She had a blast looking and laughing at the three of us on TV. That's okay, though. I was impressed that she actually sat there and made the appropriate silly faces at the appropriate times!

So with more practice (Jack was very unhappy that he missed out) and fine-tuning I think that this new one will work out fine, especially if it's my only choice. Yet, I can't help but feel nostalgic for the good old photobooth days. Something about the crazy noises that went on inside the machine while it was developing always made my imagination race. I would secretly imagine an army of little dwarves in there, feverishly etching our images onto the paper in a flurry of dwarfish activity. At least that was always worth a giggle.

More photobooth giggles here.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

cute pictures even if it's not the good old fashioned kind! where did you find this booth?

Meegan Blue said...

Lloyd Center, main floor, outside of Old Navy. It costs $3 for two strips (side by side) of the same four photos...

Diz Rivera said...

Your son is cracking me up.

andrea said...

what!? what chemicals? I don't want to know... (and this is where you would see me plug my ears and close my eyes and sing LALALALALALALA)... still, keep me posted about that one. you are a true photobooth trooper, my friend.

but let me tell you-- I love these... and they have a good photobooth feel to them (especially for digital! I'm impressed). the important thing is that the expressions are captured... just look at three of you! hilarious, classic and timeless. can't wait to see more!

Anonymous said...

Love love love these! Your kids are adorable and they totally understand the coolness of the booth. the last one is priceless! The kiss!

Joanna said...

What can I say, you're one of those fun moms! Someday your kids will be blogging about all the great times they had with you.

angela said...

these are so cute! we are on the hunt for an old school booth. we've had to use the digi-one in our mall, still fun but i miss the waiting and funny smells of the original style booth.

Double Garage said...

Except for the wide-screen these have the total feel of the retro-images. It is cool that you can select B&W. There is a whole lotta love crammed into that little booth. And a whole lotta fun!

Anonymous said...

Lovin em. My fave is the one in the middle. Adorable.