Instant Views [o.] Posing At The Photo Booth | Anonymous, 1923-67

Posing At The Photo booth, Anonymous, 1923-67

A photo booth is a vending machine that takes instant photos.

The patent for the first automated photography machine was filed in 1888 by William Pope and Edward Poole of Baltimore. The first known really working photographic machine was a product of the French inventor T. E. Enjalbert (March 1889). It was shown at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. The German-born photographer Mathew Steffens from Chicago filed a patent for such a machine in May 1889. These early machines were not reliable enough to be self-sufficient. The first commercially successful automatic photographic apparatus was the “Bosco” from inventor Conrad Bernitt of Hamburg (patented July 16, 1890). All of these early machines produced ferrotypes. The first photographic automate with negative and positive process was invented by Carl Sasse (1896) of Germany.

The first self-automated photo booth originated with Anatol Josepho (previously Josephewitz), who had arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 1923, with the first photo booth appearing 1925 on Broadway in New York City. For 25 cents, the booth took, developed and printed 8 photos, a process taking roughly 10 minutes.