The Photo Booth

I decided to brave the Orange County fair with two very small kids this year for one reason only: the photo booths.  I have always loved taking booth pictures.  My addiction began during my freshman year of high school, with my best friend Maria Rohler.  This was long before we could drive, and we had to walk a few miles to take pictures together in a photo booth at the local video arcade.  This became one of the trademark experiences of our friendship... we made sure to hit every photo booth we knew of every time we had a chance.  We loaded up with single dollar bills and we took as many pictures as we could afford.  Then we walked home with our stack of photo strips, cut them up and then traded them for our favorites. 

We started to sharpen our photo booth skills and brought props like hats, flowers and signs that said silly things we thought were HILARIOUS back then.  We posed, did some theater, a little modeling, got creative with the curtains, even changed our hairstyle in time for the next *poof* of the flash.  One time we sent Drew Barrymore a photo strip holding up my phone number with "please come!" under it, along with an invitation to the Tom Green tea party we hosted for a bunch of our friends.  She was married to him at the time, and we thought she'd appreciate that gesture.  We also hoped in our silly high school way that she'd show up.  She must have had a prior engagement.

Over the years I collected quite a beloved pile of our little photos and one day I decided to arrange my favorites in a frame.  The love I have for this collage that represents over 10 years of our zany friendship is immense.  It would be among the first things I'd grab if my house was on fire.

So, I wanted to do something a little bit unique for our family's first photo booth experience.  I came up with the idea to buy some fun fabric and pin the material over the original boring blue backdrop with safety pins.  And after a frustrating afternoon of an hour-long parking wait and huge crowds and summer heat and two skipped naps and outrageously expensive fair food, I made my entire family pile into a tiny photo booth while I hovered over them, pinning cloth.  There was an attendant for the first time ever who collected the whopping $5 per photo strip and made sure nobody got out of control in their booth.  She was very intrigued when our pictures dropped into the slot with an entirely new background.  "I've never seen THOSE curtains before!" she said, and I'd really stumped her.  I told her it was because they were in my purse.

               

I love that this silly tradition lives on and is being passed to a new generation.  I wonder how my kids will rebel in photo booths?  Only time will tell.  One thing is for sure:  we won't be having any more babies.  We've maxed out our photo booth space.