A century ago, Russian immigrant Anatol Marco Josepho revolutionized photography by inventing the world's first fully automated, coin-operated photo booth. When the "photomaton" opened near Times Square in New York City, it became an instant sensation, with a reported 280,000 people lining up to use the mechanical darkroom-equipped booth in its first six months. To commemorate this milestone, readers have shared their most treasured photo booth memories and the profound stories behind them.
Jackie Wesson's love story began in 1988 when she met Johnny through friends, writing her name and phone number on a parking ticket. Early in their relationship, they visited a photo booth after going to a movie, still in that awkward dating phase but willing to hop in together. Now, after 37 years together and 35 years of marriage, Jackie reflects on how the beauty of being with someone since youth means seeing each other as those same kids falling in love. "I'm older, I've had two kids, my hair is graying, but when Johnny looks at me, part of him still sees the 20-year-old girl he was falling in love with in the photo booth," she explains. Johnny still carries that original parking ticket with her information in his wallet, having moved it from wallet to wallet and survived occasional washings.
For Paula Wade, a writer and designer from Alberta, Canada, photo booths captured the fleeting nature of childhood. At 40, while 10 weeks pregnant with her second daughter and traveling with her one-year-old through Edmonton airport, she took a memorable photo booth picture near the departure gate while waiting to board a flight to Rome. "Photo booths are instinctively fun, irreverent, built for moments of joy and freedom," Wade observes. She and her ex-husband made it a point to visit photo booths with their daughters whenever possible, creating some of their most cherished family photographs. Having had children later in life, Wade describes never feeling more herself than in that particular photo booth moment.
Laurence Dawes chose a Berlin photo booth for one of life's most important questions. After he and his girlfriend Ellie moved to Berlin in 2020 and discovered the city's collection of amazing analog photo booths during lockdown walks, they built quite a collection of pictures. When planning his proposal, Dawes wanted somewhere private but fun, leading him to nervously navigate past photo booths all day before finally convincing Ellie to take a detour after dinner. The resulting strip shows the chaotic but perfect moment: him fumbling for the ring in the first image, Ellie going in for a kiss as he tried to ask "Will you marry me?" in the second, her shock at seeing the ring in the third, and her joyful "yes" in the fourth.
Sara Dunn's story carries deeper emotional weight. Her photo strip from around 1976 in Penarth shows her with her mother Jane during a seaside day trip while her artist and photographer father wandered off seeking inspiration. After leaving home at 18 and losing her mother at 21, Dunn discovered the folded photo strip 35 years later while clearing her childhood home following her father's death. Finding it in a tin in her old bedroom with her then-20-year-old daughter present, she dissolved into tears. "It was so powerful, just this little folded-up bit of paper," she recalls. "It was reassuring to see the bond with my mother was evident in the pictures: how much she loved me, and how much fun we had."
Matthew Hodson's photo booth memory captures a more vulnerable time in history. During Christmas holidays in his first year at Leeds University in 1986, he met up with his boyfriend in central London during the height of AIDS fears and the buildup to Section 28 legislation. Unable to show affection publicly due to widespread homophobia, they slipped into a photo booth at the train station for privacy to say goodbye properly and to have pictures of each other. "For me, this picture captures the urgency and fragility of gay love in the mid-80s," Hodson explains. Though their romantic relationship lasted under a year, they remain close friends with an enduring bond.
Family moments also feature prominently in readers' memories. Archaeologist Dougald O'Reilly captured a spontaneous moment in 2014 while on sabbatical in Paris with his wife Emma and four-to-five-month-old daughter Madeleine in the underground. The resulting photo, showing Madeleine's surprised expression when the flash went off, now takes pride of place on their refrigerator and will serve as the cover for a family history book he's writing for his now-12-year-old daughter, who finds her double chin in the photo particularly amusing.
Tommy Vinh Bui's wedding photo booth memories span two significant life moments. The first shows him and his wife Aimee at their September 2024 wedding reception, where you can see Aimee playfully scissoring his nose. Just two months later, they discovered they were expecting twins, making their brief period of domestic married bliss even more precious. Another strip from a friend's wedding shows Aimee in her third trimester with "that perpetual maternal glow" while Tommy was "levitating at our fast track to seeming adulthood." These images, permanently displayed on their refrigerator, create "a ceaseless party" every time he sees them.
Perhaps the most poignant story comes from Stef McCargar, who in the late 1990s made frequent trips to a local five-and-dime store's photo booth with young son Max following her cancer diagnosis. With Max not yet four years old and facing what seemed like a terrible prognosis, she felt a strong need to document their relationship. The photos show her hair just starting to grow back from treatment, but both mother and son appear happy and joyful despite the circumstances. She preferred these spontaneous images over professional photographs, which seemed "stagnant and staged" by comparison. "Love can zero you into the moment and capture what is most real," McCargar reflects, grateful that the photo booth helped preserve those precious moments during an uncertain time.
The centenary celebration continues with "Strike a Pose: 100 Years of the Photobooth" at The Photographers Gallery in London, running until February 22, 2026, honoring the enduring appeal of these mechanical memory-makers that have captured countless intimate, spontaneous, and life-changing moments across a full century.
