The Photoautomat on Prenzlauer Allee
The Fotoautomat. Youre not a Berlin Hipster if you haven’t taken your picture in one of these machines.
The Fotoautomat has always been a part of Berlin (and the rest of Germany), hanging around near S-Bahn /U-Bahn and Train Stations, waiting for someone to have their Passport Picture taken or just to have a fun picture as a good memory. With Photographic Technology evolving, it seemed like these Photo Booths might die out like so many machines from my childhood (im looking at you coin operated cigarette machines and yellow phone booths) – but no! It looks like they are making a full blown comeback.
*Warning – Fotoautomat Info*
The concept of a Photo Booth dates all the way back to 1888, when William Pope and Edward Poole (from Baltimore, USA) filed a patent for an automated photography machine – which was never actually built. In 1889, the French Inventor T.E Enjalbert and the German Photographer Mathew Steffens constructed working machines, which turned out to be not reliable enough to be self-sufficient. The German Inventor Conrad Bernitt managed to build the first successful Photo Booth in 1890 in Hamburg. It is interesting to note that all these machines produced Ferrotypes (in simple terms – the positive images was directly created on a metallic plate). The first machine which managed to produce photos with a negative and positive process was invented by the German Carl Sasse in 1896.
Photoautomat Coin Slot
Photo Booths as we know them today were invented by the Russian Imigrant Anatol Josepho in 1923 in New York. He produced a working prototype and presented it on Broadway, which turned out to be an instant success, despite the pictures taking 10 minutes to develop. In 1927, Josepho sold the US Rights to an investment group for 1 million dollars (and guaranteed himself royalties from then on).
The green light doesnt seem to work on this machine
With the introduction of Digital Cameras, most of the older Fotoautomaten were replaced with newer and quicker models. And that was that. Until someone realized that Black and White Photo strips are awesome.
Soon enough the machines started reappearing on the streets. For the price of 2 euros you get a strip of 4 photos, that smell like cabbage. Cabbage?
Well you see, these machines still operate with a mini chemical lab inside of them. After the photographic paper is exposed, it is then dipped in various chemical baths. This causes the rather odd cabbage smell.
The Hot Seat
They’ve proven so popular in Berlin (especially the one on the Kastanienallee, much to the ire of the locals) that they have begun to appear in other European cities such as Vienna, London and Florence.
There are currently 17 Fotoautomaten in Berlin (1 of them even being a color Photo Booth) and there’s a handy map from the photoautomat.de website to show you where you can get your next hipster fix.
Fotoautomat Locations – © photoautomat.de
those are some interesting faces
Over time, ive stumbled across a whole host of empty photo strips (much like in the movie amelie) – and it took me a while to figure out what the deal was with them. Earlier this year, the misses, my younger brother and me were walking home late at night and stopped by the Photoautomat on Schönhauser Allee. One of the Photoautomat Technicians was busy servicing one of the machines and he let us have a good look inside and explained how a few things worked. He closed the machine, and set off a test run, checked if the flash worked and left.
The Photo Booth Repairman
And thats why we kept on finding the empty strips.
I love these machines. I love film photography, and I love their novelty value. An added bonus: unlike German phone booths they are respectively clean and don’t smell like urine. And they don’t have little Russian babushkas sitting in them. True story.
Go get your picture taken in one now.
The Photoautomat
The Fotoautomat
Prenzlauer Allee 44
10405 Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg
Tram M2: Marienburger Straße
Tram M10: Prenzlauer Allee/Danziger Straße
very nice post and pictures! i hope you don’t mind when i link back to a similar post of mine
http://dothob.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/automatic-for-the-people/
Not at all! love the pictures in your post;) might got around and see if i can get a picture taken in all of them…
there is a new one at warschauer ecke mühlenstrasse that takes colour pictures! if the colours are as vintage as the black and whites are, this could be very interesting.
mhh yes -I only heard about that one recently. But you loose a bit of the overexposure that you have in the B/W pictures – its the reason why they always look so good, you dont notice any wrinkles/flaws
Lovely article. I really appreciate all the research you put into your posts. These photobooths are like candy for photographers. Such a nice red, that contrasts with the greyness of much of their surroundings. And we are all suckers for film even if we shot digital (or perhaps esp. because of it).
Here is my take on the genera: http://portfolio.radiant-flux.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/MG_3907.jpg
Frohe Weihnachten and Guten Rutsch!
Thanks Patrick – hope you had a great start into the new year. Though I primarily mess around with digital, my heart belongs to film. Ive got something for all film lovers coming up soon, so keep your eyes peeled!
I think one very important thing to say about these things is that you cannot retake pictures and there’s actually no big pause between one shot and the next one: everybody looks completely silly on his first try, cause they don’t know when to expect the four shots ^^
I have a feeling that some of them take longer between shots than others…. and you always look silly no matter what
I love these things & can barely ever convince someone to get in one with me, so I treasure the few that I have. Very interesting hearing more about the machines, the mystery strips, and the history. Can’t wait to see the rest of your 111…
the misses doesnt like them either – or at least she pretends to not like them (she doesnt seem to like photos of herself). I force her to go into them everytime we pass one and I think secretly shes happy that weve amassed a small collection of stupid pictures.