Documenting The Documenting

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I am a fan of photobooths.

Anytime I see one I grab whoever is with me and we jump inside. We drop coins in the slot or gently coax in dollar bills (making sure they are crisp and right-side-up) or swipe a card. We make a few poses, laugh a lot, and in just three-or-so-minutes this glorious little strip of images is released into the world. There's one at our local movie theater and there was a fantastic one at the Ace Hotel in Portland where we stayed with my sister a few weekends back. The images above were captured at the hotel.

I found a site that can help you locate photobooths in your area. Check out this link to Photobooth.net.

Photoboothimages

When I was going back through my photos from our weekend one of the things I noticed was that we had a couple photos that
documented the documenting. These photos, captured by my Mom, show us in action. They show us together, doing our thing, living a little bit of our story inside a photobooth.

Do you have any photos that show you or your family participating in the process of gathering images?

Maybe it's a photo of you taking pictures of your kids, or your favorite flowers, or your pet, or your coffee cup - whatever it is that you love to take photos of in your life.

If not, it may just take you asking a parent, friend, partner or even a child to snap a couple shots. Maybe it's with a camera phone or a point and shoot - anything that can capture an image you can then use on a layout in conjunction with the photos that you took (or were taken by something like a photobooth).

Having both captured tells an even richer story.

Here's the layout that combines the inside and outside photos (click the image below to view larger):

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JOURNALING :
The Ace Hotel : Portland, Oregon. One of the reasons I was excited to stay at the Ace was because I knew about the famous photobooth that sits in the lobby. I love photobooths. It's impossible for me to pass one by without inserting some money and getting photos taken with whoever happens to be with me at the moment. Over the course of the our stay we the booth three times. Once with me, Anna & Simon. Once with me & Simon (and one where Chris popped his head in the booth). And once with Chris, Simon and me. I love these shots. They are dark. They are imperfect. They are silly. I also love that we have a shot of us from the outside (taken by my Mom). It's a bit of documenting the documenting. It's always cool to see ourselves from the outside. A peek at us in action, together, hanging out. Family getaways like this are also really important to me. Getting out of our daily routine is refreshing and fun and always an adventure...just like popping in a photobooth.

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52 thoughts

  1. Molly Irwin says…
    03/10/2010

    I adore this!

    Reply 0 Replies
  2. Barb M. says…
    03/10/2010

    Fun! i love the layout. I like the lighting on the one of you and Chris that your Mom took.

    Reply 0 Replies
  3. Expat says…
    03/10/2010

    I love that! Documenting the documenting. My husband is a portrait painter here in England, and it is not unusual for us to have journalists and photographers come to the studio to do a story about a recently finished painting. Some of my favourite pictures are when I occasionally take a shot of the photographer photographing Richard. It brings another whole dimension to things. Must remember to do it more often. Thanks for reminding me, Ali.

    Reply 0 Replies
  4. ShellyJ says…
    03/10/2010

    Fabulous! simply fabulous :)

    Reply 0 Replies
  5. honeyflake says…
    03/10/2010

    so much fun captured on that page.
    i'm sharing you photobooth love.
    i'll share our photo of us photoboothing at our ace hotel from a few weeks ago, have a peek:
    http://honeyflake.typepad.com/main/2010/02/out-and-about.html

    Reply 0 Replies
  6. tara pakosta says…
    03/10/2010

    we have one by our movie theatre that we have popped into only once. We really need to do that more often! My favorite pix of my mom when she was little are from a photo booth! so CUTE!
    love the layout!
    tara

    Reply 0 Replies
  7. Samara says…
    03/10/2010

    I LOVE IT! I really like basically everything you make. :) But this is very cool. Really. So clever. So fun. Such a great way to show off your family and make a memento of a fun time spent together. You rock!

    Reply 0 Replies
  8. Kal says…
    03/10/2010

    You are so awesome, Ali! I love it.

    Reply 0 Replies
  9. Angela says…
    03/10/2010

    How appropriate that this is what you are thinking about today. I was just musing on my own blog about how I love photos of people taking photos! I love it. The question I am wondering about is whether it's weird to want to bring my camera to my own wedding. Do you think that's weird?

    Reply 0 Replies
  10. Kelly Massman says…
    03/10/2010

    What fun! I love photobooths. I would love to find a photobooth here in Missouri that takes the old-fashioned black and white pictures! We have only found the black and white with blues and stuff around it that look more modern.

    Reply 0 Replies
  11. Ali Edwards says…
    03/10/2010

    I don't think it's weird to want to have it at all...but I would probably encourage you to really just BE in the moment(s) for that one. Maybe one of your parents, siblings, friends, etc could also be photographing along with the photographer?

    Reply 0 Replies
  12. Deb J says…
    03/10/2010

    These are great. I think photobooths are fun too. But I don't know where any are around here (Phoenix). Would love to find one and have fun playing.

    Reply 0 Replies
  13. sarah says…
    03/10/2010

    love this page ali!

    Reply 0 Replies
  14. Elaine Allen says…
    03/10/2010

    Ali -
    These are just awesome! I remember doing this with my friends when we were in high school. In fact, I have some of my Mom with her friends!
    Elaine Allen

    Reply 0 Replies
  15. Jeni says…
    03/10/2010

    "...living a little bit of our story inside a photobooth."
    I just finished reading Don Miller's book (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years) and loved it. It got me and my husband really thinking about the stories that we are living and projecting to the world. Thanks for the recommendation Ali.

    Reply 0 Replies
  16. Kristyn G says…
    03/10/2010

    love the layout and its story, Ali! I will be on the lookout for a booth around our area.
    Question-do you scan and reprint the photo strips or do you use the originals directly on your layout?

    Reply 0 Replies
  17. Jeni says…
    03/10/2010

    Hi Angela - I hope you don't mind that I popped my head in here too. I don't think it's weird at all either. YOU should be at your wedding and the love of taking pictures is part of you. I brought my camera to my wedding and other people took pictures with it. At one point at the reception I was taking pictures and my sister quickly took it away - maybe because she knows I can get engrossed in the process. We had a non-traditional ceremony in a park where my husband and I walked towards the gathered guests. I thought afterwards that it would have been funny and cool if I had pulled out a camera and taken a picture of people as they were watching us walk towards them. This was (IS) me and I am sure people would have thought it an appropriate thing for me to do. Having pro and guest photos of me in a wedding dress with my camera in my hand would just be a reflection of who I am. It turns out we don't actually have a picture like that... of the crowd as we saw them. But at the same time, it would not have been good for me to do this all day and night. In hindsight, I wish that I had had a conversation with my photographer (or family members taking pictures) about the kinds of photos that I would have taken at my wedding. This seems obvious and we certainly talked a lot but I was struck after the wedding to find that the majority of photos were of my husband and me. I would have like more of the guests - these are the pictures that I would have taken if I had had a camera.
    It's your wedding. You only get to do it once (hopefully). Do the things that you want to do... the things that you will look back on and smile at because they were fun and crazy and maybe perceived as a little odd at the time.
    Oh yeah - One more thing: Kind of like what Ali said... The absolute best advice I got leading up to and on the day of my wedding was to enjoy the whole day. It goes by so fast that it is important to try and take it easy and enjoy the little moments and even the things that go wrong.

    Reply 0 Replies
  18. Ali Edwards says…
    03/10/2010

    I used the originals here but I also scanned them in and have them in my computer now too.

    Reply 0 Replies
  19. Patrick Ng says…
    03/10/2010

    Is that a black and white only booth or you got to select yourself? Love the idea Ali, its like having fun again with something long forgotten, now I wonder if there is any photo booth still left in my city (Hong Kong), nowadays even photo labs are disappearing.

    Reply 0 Replies
  20. Ann says…
    03/10/2010

    How fun!!! I love the pics your mom captured. The next photo booth we see, we are jumping in!

    Reply 0 Replies
  21. Ali Edwards says…
    03/10/2010

    This was a black and white only booth - super cool. Here's a cool link that let's you search your area for photosbooths: http://www.photobooth.net/locations/

    Reply 0 Replies
  22. Patrick Ng says…
    03/10/2010

    wow there's a international photobooth convention happening every year. yup Ann, I'm jumping in to the next photo booth too, perhaps I should grab somebody on street with me.... "100 strangers with me in a 2'x3' photobooth".

    Reply 0 Replies
  23. Terri says…
    03/10/2010

    I love this! My brother is a great photographer and outdoorsman. We are with him all the time and I have so many shots of him taking shots! I am going to compile them into a mini-book, Ali. His birthday is March 25th!
    Thanks soooooooooooooooooooooo much!

    Reply 0 Replies
  24. Karen G says…
    03/10/2010

    I always hit the photo booth at the Fair every summer with my kidlets......such fantastic instant gratification...er, um, I mean documenting! :> And I prefer the B&W photo booths to the color ones...the pics just seem more timeless somehow.
    As for documenting the documenting, I love the combo on your layout. I do have a handful of pics of me scrapping with friends, but not pics of the pics being taken....an interesting idea, particularly that it then includes the one not in the photos.
    Hope your week is going great! :>

    Reply 0 Replies
  25. Amber Lee says…
    03/10/2010

    I love photobooths. We had an old black and white one brought to our wedding. People could take unlimited photos - and they did. My friend and I made up guest books to slip the strips in that people left us and I could go through those everyday they are so awesome. I love going to our friends houses and seeing the strips up on their fridges three years later. I've also made layouts documenting the picture taking - from my film days I sewed a strip of photo processing envelopes with my last name on them down the side of a page and paired it with a picture of my husband setting up the tripod to show just how many photos we took on our road trip. Excellent stories - love this layout.

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