There is no shortage of PhotoBooth projects of various sorts that have been done by artists and photographers worldwide. It’s a popular and well loved method of photographing and of being photographed. The booth provides a sense of privacy that prompts people to relax and the mirrored surface provides a wonderful opportunity to compose ones self, (and of course pull silly faces…).
In 2007 Melbourne artist Amy Spiers ran a portable Photobooth as a street art installation during the Melbourne Fringe Festival. The interior of the Photobooth was created as a cosy, intimate, almost homely, space. Spiers then photographed two people in the booth at a time, the interesting criterion being that the participants were obliged to be strangers to one another. You can see the photos on the project’s Flickr page, on which the artist says of the project “In a political climate that urges suspicion and fear of strangers, I aim to encourage people to reject their customary paranoia in favour of making rare and significant contact with diverse individuals.” A worthy aim and, from all reports, in this instance a successful one.
Another Photobooth project that I have come across is that by American artist Christopher Irion, who has run a Photobooth as community project in many towns and cities across America. Irion first ran his Photobooth outside a cafe that he frequented in San Francisco. The project was immensely successful both in the quality of the photographs and in the community response. Irion’s Photobooth comprised a small lightweight and collapsible room or studio, outside of which the photographer stood with his camera, ’sticking through a hole in the front of the booth’. He took multiple images of each subject and displayed the results from each community as a wall sized installation in a local public space, never excluding a participant from the final display.
Irion says of PhotoBooths, “I see that the photobooth can function like a private sanctuary but in a public place. Surrounded by white walls and behind a curtain, subjects are unable to see even the photographer, although I see them through the camera. In this way, subjects can approach the moment with openness and curiosity and we see them in resulting portraits without their public mask. A much more revealing portrait is often possible. The gaze we encounter in these portraits is often direct and intimate…”
These are two very innovative and inspiring projects which have used the Photobooth as a format for projects that explore ideas of community and social interaction. My PhotoBooth project (I really shall have to think of a more original name!) has many parallels with these projects however it differs in some fundamental ways. I am interested in the idea of people being faced, confronted perhaps, with their own image in a very public space. Whatever interaction might be going on in the background between passers by or the subjects companions affects their experience and yet is isolated from the very private interaction between the subject and their own reflection. I am not including all the images taken in the course of the project on this blog as some just don’t work; sometimes I have simply missed the moment. I take only one or two images of each subject and am trying to catch that moment when they look themselves in the eye. Stripping away that private sanctuary of the booth is confronting to people and I thank all those who are brave enough to have participated. If your photo doesn’t appear on this blog it’s purely because I just didn’t catch that particular instant that I was after.
I don’t anticipate posting any new images to this blog for about a month due to obligations in other areas, including an exhibition, and a portfolio review that I’m preparing for. Do visit again soon however as I will add more images as soon as I am able.
